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Hardcover, 227 Pages.
The Real Story Behind the Wild West’s Greatest Tale
His mother was against it, but he grew up to be a cowboy anyway. Zane Grey was a corn-fed mid-westerner who ended up an unhappy dentist in New York City. After a journey to Arizona and Utah in 1907, he decided he would rather wear chaps and a Stetson than return to a mundane life pulling teeth in Manhattan.
Thus began his career as a writer. Zane Grey faced mountains of rejection and disappointment in publishing his early novels, but when Riders of the Purple Sage was published in 1912, and it set in motion the entire Western genre in books, movies, and eventually country western music. It was and remains an epic, colorful novel, filled with action, romance, and vivid descriptions of the Old West. Drawing on his letters, diaries, and personal papers, the story of his growth as a writer and of the creation of this book is a rags-to-riches saga sure to appeal to writers of any age, history buffs, motion picture fans, and lovers of music. Plus, it is a story set against the grandeur and sublimity of the American West.
About the Author
Stephen J. May grew up in southern California, attended college and university at California State University at Los Angeles, graduating summa cum laude, and earning an M.A. in comparative literature and history. His PhD was earned at International University, London, UK. He taught at the college level for twenty years, earning several teaching honors. And he has traveled and written extensively, both in the West and abroad. In 2002 he wrote the definitive biography of Pulitzer Prize winner James A. Michener (University of Oklahoma Press) whose papers were archived at the University of Northern Colorado, where he was teaching at the time. His two previous biographies of Zane Grey focused on different aspects of his life, but in this new book he investigates the background of Riders of the Purple Sage--one book which has defined and invigorated the Western era from 1912 to the present day.
Payment & Security
Your payment information is processed securely. We do not store credit card details nor have access to your credit card information. | <urn:uuid:8df8fdc4-027f-43f2-9ce4-2dd5e692b000> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.sportingclassicsstore.com/products/zane-greys-riders-of-the-purple-sage | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.975944 | 465 | 2.078125 | 2 |
Oklahoma parents, students, educators, business/community leaders and legislators knew the facts and worked to support these common-sense solutions.
READ TAUREAN'S LETTER >
“Oklahoma is operating under a few outdated and restrictive policies that are negatively impacting our kids. As parents, we should be aware of and upset about these policies, and we should want and demand change.”
Read Ron's Letter >
“The ability to choose the school that works best for your child is a right all parents should have. We need a new and improved transfer policy that opens up more of this opportunity and provides support for our students in these challenging times.”
READ FULL ARTICLE >
“By giving more funding per student in the state aid formula and parents more freedom to choose the public school that best meets their family’s needs, we are moving things in a positive direction for Oklahoma education.”
Bridge the Gap Digital Wallet awarded $1,500 grants directly to 5,000 Oklahoma families who made at or below 185% of the federal poverty line. EKCO happily volunteered to assist with the Bridge the Gap Digital Wallet program solely by communicating with families about the program and how to apply. It was our honor to assist families in this way. EKCO did not receive any funding to do this work.
Families filled out an application with ClassWallet, and ClassWallet managed the digital accounts for the families. EKCO was not part of the screening of families to receive the grants. Grant funds were used by families to purchase curriculum content, supplies, tutoring services and technology. The grants were funded by The Governor’s Emergency Education Relief (GEER) fund through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. Not one dollar went to, or went through EKCO as part of the Bridge the Gap Digital Wallet program. | <urn:uuid:d1798e71-5842-4447-a208-4fd2effca0c1> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.everykidcountsok.org/2021-solutions | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.958379 | 393 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Proposed rules unlikely to prevent similar incidents.
Despite the fact that when half-Asian Elliot Rodger went on his murder spree, he knifed three of his victims to death, the response of progressives has been primarily focused on two topics: “White Male Privilege” and “Gun Control”.
Legislation to outlaw either being white or male cannot be proposed…yet. However, one of the most progressively activist of all of California’s elected representatives offers a new set of gun control rules: The “Pause for Safety Act”.
Fascinating, I think, that “gun” does not appear in the title of Senator Barbara Boxer’s latest masterpiece. Her proposed rules would do the following:
• One, it would help ensure that families and others can go to court and seek a gun violence prevention order to temporarily stop someone close to them who poses a danger to themselves or others from purchasing a firearm.
• Two, it would help ensure that families and others can also seek a gun violence prevention warrant that would allow law enforcement to take temporary possession of firearms that have already been purchased if a court determines that the individual poses a threat to themselves or others.
• Three, it would help ensure that law enforcement makes full use of all existing gun registries when assessing a tip, warning or request from a concerned family member or other close associate.
So, how would this legislation have prevented Rodger from gaining access to knives? And, by the logic that produced this chestnut, perhaps we should regulate the distribution of hot coffee?:
July 2011: Rodger splashes coffee and tea on two couples during a jealous rage in separate incidents in July of his first summer in Isla Vista, according to his writing. He became “livid with envious hatred” at the sight of a young couple “kissing passionately” at a Starbucks, he wrote.
In addition to guns and knives, the report linked above also indicates that Rodger used his vehicle as a weapon:
He fired his guns through the driver’s side window parallel to the sidewalk as he drove his vehicle down the wrong side of the road, the sheriff said. He shot at a woman before a sheriff’s deputy fired at him. His car struck and injured a bicyclist before Rodger shot four pedestrians, the sheriff said.
Maybe we should tack on a car violence prevention warrant?
Even if the court grants a family’s request to deny a relative the right to purchase or have possession of a weapon, when do madmen follow rules? With enough money and motivation, a person intent on obtaining a gun will eventually find a way to procure one.
Let’s look at the local police force’s assessment of Rodger, which is related to the third item on Boxer’s wish list and occurred shortly before the rampage.
At approximately 10:17 p.m. on Wednesday, April 30, 2014, the Santa Barbara County Emergency Communications Center received a call from a mental health staff member assigned to answer the Santa Barbara County Alcohol, Drug and Mental Health Toll Free Access Line. The staff member requested deputies check the welfare of 22-year-old Elliot Rodger, who lived at an apartment in the 6500 block of Seville Road in Isla Vista. The staff member said she had been contacted by a person who identified himself as a friend of Elliot Rodger. Based on information from the caller and Elliot Rodger’s mother, the staff member on the Mental Health hot line requested a welfare check on Elliot Rodger.
….When Sheriff’s deputies arrived at Rodger’s address, they contacted him outside of his residence. Deputies found Rodger to be shy, timid and polite. When questioned by the deputies about reported disturbing videos he had posted on-line, Rodger told them he was having trouble fitting in socially in Isla Vista and the videos were merely a way of expressing himself. Based upon the information available to them at the time, Sheriff’s deputies concluded that Rodger was not an immediate threat to himself or others, and that they did not have cause to place him on an involuntary mental health hold, or to enter or search his residence. Therefore, they did not view the videos or conduct a weapons check on Rodger.
Perhaps instead of using “gun registries”, rules to permit a 72-hour mental evaluation hold for a family member would be a better solution, if agreed to by a court? Whereas someone like Rodger could keep it together for a 30-minute friendly interview with authorities, it would be more of a challenge to fake sanity during an intense 3 days with a court-designated psychiatrist while the professional also evaluated the entire content of a patient’s social medial collection.
In the wake of the slaughter of the 20 children and 6 staff members at the Sandy Hook Elementary School at the hands of another mentally ill individual, over 1500 state gun bills were proposed. For example, one California bill that passed in this flurry of activity required psychotherapists whose patients threaten violence to report the threats. As Rodger’s case shows, simple reporting (by the parents in this instance) did not prevent the young man from killing.
None of those new rules helped prevent the UCSB slayings. And it is unlikely Boxer’s new proposals, offered with earnest sincerity and good intentions, will prevent a similar incident from occurring in the future. | <urn:uuid:9ae1bc0d-447c-435b-bc0f-d9e1e9e3a159> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://paradshift.net/tag/feinstein/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571147.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810040253-20220810070253-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.970226 | 1,133 | 1.75 | 2 |
Friday, February 13, 2015
Physics Building, Room 204
Note special room.
Andrei Malashevich , Yale University
[Host: Joe Poon]
Quantum-mechanical calculations based on methods that do not require any empirical input (first-principles calculations) have become an indispensable tool in studies of materials properties. In this talk, I will focus on applications of first-principles methods to studies of perovskite oxide surfaces and interfaces. Depending on the choice of cations, oxides can have almost any desired property. I will present two examples of materials that exhibit relation between structure and electronic properties at surfaces and interfaces. First, I will discuss an interface between metallic LaNiO3 thin film and ferroelectric PbTiO3. The polar field created by a ferroelectric can be used to modulate the conductivity of a channel material. This allows one to design non-volatile electronic devices based on the ferroelectric field effect. Typically, in the ferroelectric field effect, switching the polar state of a ferroelectric changes the carrier density in the channel material. I will show that in the LaNiO3/PbTiO3 interface the conductivity of the interface changes due to changes in carrier mobility, which in turn is related to structural distortions at the interface and appearance of two-dimensional conductivity in PbTiO3 at the interface. Second, I will present a study of properties of the (001) surfaces of thin LaNiO3 films. These films show dramatic differences in conductivity depending on the surface termination (LaO vs NiO2). We find that in this case, the conductivity is related to the polar structural distortions appearing at the surfaces of films.
To add a speaker, send an email to firstname.lastname@example.org. Please include the seminar type (e.g. Colloquia), date, name of the speaker, title of talk, and an abstract (if available). | <urn:uuid:782d5406-aa3a-44f8-9f3d-e46ae07c4d73> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.phys.virginia.edu/Announcements/talk-list.asp?SELECT=SID:2820 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570879.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808213349-20220809003349-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.889086 | 419 | 1.914063 | 2 |
This project was funded by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC) under grant number NITC-RR-873. The authors would like to acknowledge the work of University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication undergraduate students Cameron Kokes, Lina Rode and Benson Winklebeck for their contribution.
Quality of life, City planning -- Oregon, Local transit -- Oregon
Livability of place is a central theme in developing concepts about transit ridership. In order to develop strategy for a compelling public communication campaign to increase transit ridership, this project frames the connections between livability and transit and offers a set of public campaign examples. A national survey taken of riders provides possible message strategies. With this information, a creative strategy team was tasked with developing a strategy for messaging and developed the Green Rider profile. Recommendations for creative direction and further study are offered.
Morrison, Deborah, Autumn Shafer, Rebecca Lewis and Hannah Lewman. Communicating Livability: Changing Public Behavior Project Brief NITC-RR-873. Portland, OR: Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC), 2018 | <urn:uuid:52cd3a16-4ff7-4b33-8330-29986c0dd480> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/trec_briefs/70/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.888337 | 274 | 2.09375 | 2 |
Student Research Paper
Date of Creation
Freshwater tidal marshes are essential stopover points for migratory birds traveling up and down the east coast of North America. Given the importance of these habitats, we examined the effects of sea level rise on vegetation health and vegetation migration at Otter Point Creek Estuarine Reserve. We aimed to test three predictions: 1) vegetation health will decline over time during vegetation growth periods, 2) vegetation migration of less water-tolerant species will occur with movement into higher elevation plots, 3) people will be aware that there are impacts of climate change on species around them and themselves. We used a combination of Google Earth Engine, ArcGIS, field-collected vegetation data analyzed in R, and a survey of visitor perceptions to test these predictions. Our results demonstrate that 1) vegetation health has increased in some areas but decreased in others over time; it is unclear which vegetation has grown over time, 2) there is a slow vegetation migration in low- to mid-marsh transects, 3) people are aware that climate change impacts plants, animals, and people, but fewer recognize that it will impact them personally. Our results also show that, with a 10ft increase in sea level, this system would disappear completely. Overall, this vital wildlife habitat will continue to change with increased extreme weather events that will negatively cause significant shifts within the marsh.
This is the author's version of the work. This publication appears in Gettysburg College's institutional repository by permission of the copyright owner for personal use, not for redistribution.
Bechtel, Haley A.; Junis, Meghan L.; and Lucero Garcia, Keylen, "Sea Level Rise and Public Perceptions of Climate Change at Otter Point Creek Estuarine Reserve, MD" (2022). Student Publications. 1010. | <urn:uuid:e28f549b-3a21-4d2b-9f68-b4d44fbf8777> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/student_scholarship/1010/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.908092 | 422 | 3.40625 | 3 |
I am hoping to get any information about this large bird that was perched on my mailbox yesterday and made me wait to get my mail. My cat has been missing over a month and I'm trying to i.d. all possible outcomes :( Plus the bird is pretty fascinating. It was around 3pm Nov 20th and the house is about a block from the Atlantic Ocean. If I can attach the pictures you can see the white and brown mottled chest, yellow legs and talons, dark brown feathers with white lined tips etc. I didn't see the fly pattern. There were also 9 ibis in the yard at the time and I've never seen that many either!
Any information would be greatly appreciated! I read about the red tailed hawk and another named with an "S" but there weren't enough pictures for me to understand the lingo etc.
Cheers, Becky Elizabeth | <urn:uuid:8c357150-116e-4d32-9560-85a4b999f24b> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://forums.whatbird.com/index.php?/profile/985-beliza/content/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573533.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818215509-20220819005509-00264.warc.gz | en | 0.974135 | 191 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Police in at least five different European countries have detained dozens of people accused of smuggling people across the English Channel to the UK.
It is thought the criminal network brought up to 10,000 migrants in small boats in a period of 12-18 months.
In Germany, 18 suspects were arrested as hundreds of officers swooped in on locations across the country. A main focus of the operation was the city of Osnabrück, which police say was one of the hubs of the operation.
Raids were also carried out in the UK, France, Belgium and the Netherlands.
It is believed to be the “biggest ever” international operation targeting criminal gangs suspected of smuggling people across the English Channel, which separates the UK from mainland Europe.
Every year thousands of migrants, from countries such as Iran and Iraq, try to cross the English Channel attempting to reach the UK.
The journey is extremely risky, with many making it in small inflatable boats organised by criminal gangs to whom the migrants pay high prices for their services.
One German official described the business model of trafficking as “vile and unscrupulous”, which could only be tackled through international cooperation.
Law enforcement authorities have described how small boats were brought from China to Germany and then finally to France where they were used to carry people illegally across the water.
Officers from the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) also took part in the operation, arresting six people in East London. They remain in custody and are currently being questioned by officials. | <urn:uuid:e7643011-f7ed-4a7f-80ee-5ac55ff682df> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://manmadenews.com/2022/07/06/suspected-people-smugglers-arrested-across-europe/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570651.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20220807150925-20220807180925-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.984124 | 316 | 1.859375 | 2 |
For Kids: Top Holiday Gifts are Downloadable This Year!
In its annual holiday survey of parents of 2 to 10-year-olds, PBS KIDS found that the leading trend in gifts for kids this year will be downloadable such as apps, games, e-books and digital music. Fifty-eight percent of parents reported that they will “most likely” or “definitely” be purchasing downloadable gifts this season. Of these parents, more than half (55 percent) plan to spend more or the same as last year on downloads.
Less Emphasis on Hardware, More on Downloads
Since 86 percent of parents report that their kids already have access to a computer, smartphone, or tablet, the focus this year is less on giving new devices and more on the downloadable items that will keep these gadgets fresh and exciting. Parents are gifting downloadables in two primary ways – by selecting and pre-loading apps and games onto devices for their kids (74 percent) and with gift cards that enable the purchase of downloads (57 percent).
Content is the Key
“As parents plan to give children downloadable gifts this holiday season, it is important to remember that content is key,” said Lesli Rotenberg, Senior Vice President, Children’s Media, PBS. “Tablet and mobile devices can provide learning opportunities when they are loaded with curriculum-based apps and games that are both fun and educational, but it can be overwhelming for parents to determine which apps are the right apps for their kids. At PBS, we recognize the trust that parents place in us to help them make the right media choices for their children.”
This holiday season, PBS is offering the following tips to help parents navigate successful selection and use of downloadable gifts:
- Keep it Fresh: A good app is the perfect combination of education and entertainment, and should be appropriate for your child’s age and stage of development. Kids are most engaged when the features in an app address as many senses as possible and when these features offer variations on a theme, and are not too repetitive. Keep in mind your child’s age and skill set and choose games that present the right amount of challenge without becoming frustrating.
- Safety First: Parenting today includes teaching kids how to use digital media responsibly. Help children recognize the difference between information worth sharing and private information. There are many ways you can share your ideas and creativity online, but personal information should remain private.
- Avoid apps that try to sell: A six- or seven-year-old can’t be expected to distinguish between an entertaining game and advertising. Select apps from trusted, reliable sources, and make sure that they are not trying to market to your child.
- Play Together: 56% of surveyed parents reported that they co-play mobile apps with their children “often” or “sometimes”. This is a great habit to start early in a child’s exposure to media. Talking with kids about the game or activity as you play offers both the opportunity to bond as a family and also identify teachable moments.
- Set limits: As with any new toy, parents should set expectations and limitations with their kids. Enjoying downloadable apps and games should be balanced with other offline activities and play.
PBS KIDS Apps
This holiday season, PBS KIDS has 24 educational mobile apps available for download. Some that will sure to be favorite stocking stuffers include:
- DANIEL TIGER’S NEIGHBORHOOD “Play at home with Daniel” for iOS and Android,
Kindle Tablet and Nook Tablet – Playing is learning as kids explore bedtime, bath time ad play pretend doctor at Daniel’s house.
- SUPER WHY! ABC Adventures: Alphabet for iOS devices – Named one of the Top 25 iPad Apps for kids by TIME.com, kids can play five literacy games while mastering the alphabet.
DINOSAUR TRAIN “Mesozoic Math Adventures” for iPad, Nook Tablet, Kindle Tablet –
Kids develop math skills and explore life sciences, vocabulary and concepts alongside Buddy, Tiny and Don.
- Martha Speaks Word Spinner for iPad – Up to four players can join in the fun, with six interactive mini-games that both kids and parents can enjoy together while building storytelling and vocabulary skills.
- Cyberchase 3D Builder for iPad – Kids can help rebuild a town turning 2D shapes into 3D structures while developing spatial and reasoning skills.
PBS continues to provide parents with tools and resources to make smart media choices, and to offer kids media content that will help them learn and grow. With a cross-platform approach, PBS KIDS is increasingly serving children wherever they live, learn, and play – through educational apps, on TV, online, and in the classroom.
More helpful tips are available online at PBSParents.org. | <urn:uuid:b75c2b9e-ee5a-4f70-9929-dc955d2f3fc7> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.wkar.org/station-news/2012-11-20/for-kids-top-holiday-gifts-are-downloadable-this-year | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571147.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810040253-20220810070253-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.947 | 1,018 | 2.3125 | 2 |
Give your monitor a second look. If your screen is planted directly on your desktop, it’s time to ask management for a raise — for your computer’s display. The top of your the screen should be level with your eyes. The idea is to get the eyes looking down about 10 degrees. If it’s any lower or higher, computer users will adapt to it by moving their head. If your screen is too low, your head points down, causing neck and back aches. High displays, meanwhile, contribute to dry eye syndrome.
Poor posture? Take it on the chin. Poor posture is something that every office-based employee should consider throughout their day. Most people sitting at a computer get drawn into the screen, which means they crane their necks forward. This imbalance puts strain on the neck and spine. Sitting at a desk, that bowling ball is actually our head, so Bowman recommends chin retractions, or making a double chin, to keep the neck and spine lined up underneath.
Stand up for yourself. The modern workplace was built around the concept of sitting, but humans’ natural ability to stand goes back millions of years. Sit-stand workstations helped workers replace 25 percent of their sitting time with standing up, which can increase their sense of well being and decrease their fatigue and appetite.
Move it or lose it. But why stand when you could walk? Many offices around the country are getting wise to treadmill desks, which can help workers burn 100 calories more per hour during the working day. The most important thing is to switch it up and work in different positions throughout the day | <urn:uuid:606e8919-cae6-4f09-9f96-3d331de3ca88> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.cushioncare.com/blogs/news/tips-to-stay-healthy-if-you-sit-at-a-computer-all-day | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.959309 | 330 | 2.515625 | 3 |
5 Safety Tips for Truckers this 4th of July
Independence Day is just around the corner, and we wanted to share five safety driving tips for our truckers who might be on the road this Fourth of July.
According to WalletHub.com, 46.9 million Americans will travel 50 or more miles from home this Fourth of July. Despite of high traffic volume, truckers must continue to do their jobs, and therefore we wanted to compile a list of Fourth of July safety tips.
1. BE ALERT
Chances are there will be many people on the road traveling throughout the country this holiday weekend. We want to remind our truckers to be well rested and avoid being distracted. Around the holiday, sadly, we often see an increase in impaired driving crashes. According to NHTSA, from 2015-2019 there were 1,330 drivers killed in motor vehicle crashes over the Fourth of July holiday period- 28% of the drivers killed have been under the influence. If you see a drunk driver on the road, safely pull over and call 911 for assistance. You'll thank yourself later.
2. MAINTAIN YOUR SPEED AND ALWAYS WEAR YOUR SEATBELT
If you find yourself noticing that traffic is outpacing you, give yourself a break and slow down. Do not get overwhelmed by other drivers and just focus on the road. Keep in mind that reducing your speed can save lives. But most importantly don't forget to keep a safe following distance between you and the vehicle in front of you.
3. EXPECT DELAYS
As mentioned above, there will be many people on the road this Fourth of July. You might get caught up in a traffic jam at some point. Just remember, it's best to plan your route ahead of time so you have plenty of time to get to your destination safely. Although not everyone might have a deadline on when to get to their destinations, we understand our drivers often do and therefore we think it's important to plan ahead for unexpected delays.
4. CHECK WEATHER CONDITIONS
Weather patterns have been at high risk throughout the country the past few weeks. In the Northwest, record breaking heat has been raging from highs of 29 to 36 degrees Celsius. In the Midwest, thunderstorms have flooded many streets through northwestern Indiana and Northern Illinois. In the Southeast, Tropical Storm Claudette has caused heavy rain and tornadoes leading to severe damage. We recommend you download the Weather Channel app for real-time updates. But most importantly, limit time on your phone while you are driving. If you find that weather conditions are worsening, pull over and contact your dispatcher for assistance.
5. LIMIT YOUR TIME ON THE ROAD
We understand you have a time and place to be, and this can cause a lot of anxiety. But most importantly, we want our truckers to be safe on the road. Schedule time for meals, sleep and personal maintenance. Do not drive if you find yourself unfocused and exhausted. Start your route early so you can drive responsibly, stay focused on road, pay attention to traffic conditions, and to beat traffic in and around major cities. By following these steps, we think that you will be successful on the road at all times, and not just this holiday.
We want to Let Freedom Ring this Fourth of July and that is why we wanted to give back to truckers this holiday. Check out our Independence Day Giveaway starting June 28th-July 2nd for a chance to win a $750 Visa Gift Card. Make sure to follow our Instagram page here for rules on how to enter the raffle.
About the Author
Pamela is the Senior Marketing Manager at Edge Logistics. She has a Bachelors of Arts from DePaul University in Public Relations and Advertising with a minor in Photography. Pamela is responsible for overseeing advertising, marketing, press, and social media related to Edge. | <urn:uuid:c024f6c6-1ec6-42ac-aa8e-bb0b2e2f1554> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://blog.edgelogistics.com/5-safe-driving-tips-for-truckers-this-fourth-of-july | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.962454 | 801 | 1.609375 | 2 |
ToolBox: Fight Your Stereotype
Too often in cycling, riders are constantly convincing themselves they are not a certain type of rider. Conversely, riders will often desire to excel in a specialty they may not be suited for. Let’s look at some of the myths and truths associated with stereotyping bike racers and see how it applies to you and your program.
“I’m definitely not a climber!”, “I can’t sprint my way out of a paper bag”, “I’m just not a good time trialist.” How often have you heard riders throwing out these old adages after a race, often to justify their poor performance? That’s bad enough, but unfortunately we ingrain those statements into our psyches throughout the day, such that they’re in our heads before we even hit the start line.
As any sport psychologist knows, there is an immensely strong connection between our thoughts and ultimate action: mind over matter. This is classically defined by a quote attributed to automaker Henry Ford: “Whether you think you can or can’t, you are right!”
It is true that cycling has become more specialized in the past couple of decades, but we are talking only at the rarefied upper strata of the top professionals. In general, road cycling can be classified into four basic specialties or strengths: climber, all-arounder, time trialist, and sprinter.
To understand these specialties, we can use the sport of running as an example. Looking at a runner’s body will be a good indication of what type of event they might excel at. For example, a marathoner like Paul Tergat (Kenyan) looks completely different than a 100m sprinter like Maurice Green (USA). One way to classify them is to use Body Mass Index (BMI), which is a measurement of body composition determined by dividing weight (kilos) by height (meters). Elite runners with higher BMIs generally have more fast twitch muscle fibers (Type 2B) and excel in sprinting events. On the flip side, runners with lower BMIs usually have predominantly slow twitch fibers (Type 1) and excel in endurance events like the marathon. Maurice Green’s BMI is 25.9, while Paul Tergat’s BMI is 18.2. You can be quite sure that you will NEVER see these two athletes line up at the same start line.
In road bike racing of course, all different types of riders DO line up together and that is one reason why the sport is so unique.
Assessing Your Style
So how do you determine what type of rider you are and does it matter?
Essential Components – First and foremost, remember that road cycling is an endurance sport and no matter what your “specialty”, you require the components of endurance and strength to be successful. For example, if you are a sprinter like Robbie McEwen you still have to make it to the finish line to be able to unleash your powerful sprint. And if you are a climber in a stage race, you still have to finish the “field sprint” events with the lead group (or close) to stay in contention.
What you enjoy – Just as important as what your physiology dictates your strength may be, is what aspect of bike racing you truly enjoy. Over the years, I have seen skinny climber types that thrive on sprinting and bigger, more muscular riders who love what it takes to climb and do it well. Mind over matter so to speak.
Time will tell – Over time, the most important thing you can do as a rider is recognize through experience what type of events best suit you. Most races have some form of climbing in them; do you excel in the shorter, steeper or longer, sustained climbs? By simply paying attention to yourself during both training and racing and discussing your strengths and weaknesses with a good coach, you will learn over time what you are good at.
Tactics – The key aspect of cycling that makes it so different from other sports is pack dynamics and the use of tactics. You may not be the best climber in the race, but by using tactics, you may be able to overcome that weakness. For example, starting climbs at the front of the field and letting yourself drift back ever so slightly may allow you to stay with the lead group versus starting in the middle or back and being constantly gapped and eventually dropped. Given the right tactics, physical limitations can be overcome.
Training – Too often we get stuck in a rut of doing rides or workouts that we love. Surprise surprise, but riders who think they’re climbers love to climb, and people who think they’re sprinters love to and avoid climbs and do sprint workouts. Train your limiters, and you will find your opportunities for success expand greatly because you’ll end up with more chances to employ your strengths.
Take home message
If you are new to racing and still developing (Junior or Master), it is essential to experience all different types of races (e.g. road, crit, time trials) and conditions within those races (e.g. hills, flats, stage races.). Don’t stereotype yourself too early in your cycling career. Approach your racing and training with an open mind. Embrace all types of races.
As you reach your plateau of fitness and become more experienced, which is usually determined by how much time there is available in your life to race and train, focus on certain types of events and plan your training and season around them. Do not neglect any race because they are not your type. Doing all types of races will make you a more well-rounded bike racer and will only benefit your specialty when it comes time for that particular race.
Ride safe! Ride strong!
Bruce Hendler created AthletiCamps to provide cycling specific coaching and training to athletes and cyclists of all levels. Find out more at www.athleticamps.com | <urn:uuid:b12131ae-d7df-4941-811d-3f435252621b> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://pezcyclingnews.com/toolbox/toolbox-fight-your-stereotype/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570651.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20220807150925-20220807180925-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.946112 | 1,260 | 2.265625 | 2 |
Online advertising will be the element of advertising and marketing which utilizes present day online world and internet based systems like mobile devices, personal computer computer systems along with other electronic multimedia and platforms for promoting products to buyers. The web is fast becoming one of the biggest types of income for almost all organizations, turning it into important for corporations to utilize all accessible marketing techniques to enhance their arrive at and produce new leads. Digital advertising and marketing consists of making use of internet based software programs like emailing plans, search engine marketing, video marketing, and social internet marketing.
Internet marketing made a great progress way because its beginning. In previous days, website marketing consisted mainly of pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, search engine optimization (Search engine marketing), advertisements, and also other equivalent paid for marketing types. As internet businesses developed in level of popularity, even so, the function of those conventional website marketing practices began to reduce as new plus more efficient promotion applications were put together by knowledgeable online marketers.
Being an online marketing strategy, Search engine optimisation functions to drive traffic to internet websites by raising the search rankings in main search engines like yahoo. Website seo aids you to appeal to visitors to a web site from other websites through providing applicable content material. For example, when an marketer places a Google AdWords advertisements online that is related to his / her organization, the major search engines permits the key words to be utilized. This enhances the opportunities that the guest who clicked for the advertising will be curious about the services or products offered by the advertiser.
Video marketing, on the other hand, employs saved audio and video resources to advertise. The combination of these two methods provides for a special probability to advertisers and marketing experts as well. By internet marketing and computerized marketing and advertising attempts, online businesses can connect to potential clients and consumers over the world. The online market place offers numerous the opportunity interact with potential customers, which makes it easier to help them to convert online website visitors into shelling out customers. It is a great financial investment for anyone which has a really serious internet existence.
In their web marketing campaign, providers should make certain that their keyword phrases shall be as part of the website pages, due to the fact internet marketing is pretty low-priced. Once they never, then their advertisements will almost certainly by no means appear in the search engines. The various search engines have procedures in place that prevent website-pages of content from staying posted for precise keyword phrases. This is called keyword and key phrase stuffing, and it has been fined many times because of the big search engines like google. The truth is, now and again, the courts have found the various search engines accountable for bogus advertising and marketing, which could price them dearly. For that reason, it is necessary for world wide web-masters to pay attention to how their webpages are listed in the search engines make certain that their web sites stick to the principles.
The most common strategy employed by internet marketing companies currently involves pay-per-click (Paid advertising) advertising. With this type of affiliate marketing promotion, marketing experts will be able to instantly drive traffic to their websites. This is usually performed by obtaining ad room or space on widely used online websites likeGoogle and yahoo, and Bing. These internet websites usually ask for a tiny payment anytime an individual clicks amongst their advertising. The greater number of well-known your website, the much more likely the website will create salary therefore charge.
Another way to drive traffic to one’s site is by means of social networking tactics. Social internet marketing commonly involves creating blog sites, posting posts, and relating together with other people who are considering similar products and services on the net. Most companies with a good online marketing plan will seek the services of experts who focus on these advertising and marketing practices. They are capable of build efficient social internet marketing approaches that will heighten the website visitors to a company’s website whilst escalating a company’s brand and total popularity.
Web marketers also have different types of systems they may use so as to increase their marketing on the internet practices. Various types of Search engine optimization programs are available and using one of these brilliant Web optimization programs can drastically enrich a company’s opportunity to create qualified prospects and income. Website seo application might help a person market their webpage thru different types of marketing. Additionally, it may assist enterprises to enhance their models thru various types of marketing strategies. Website seo is a fantastic way to bring in prospects and improve profits for any kind of enterprise.
For more info on digital marketing agency https://kobedigital.com/las-vegas-digital-marketing-agency/ stop by the webpage.
Carry on your quest for further related articles: | <urn:uuid:957e39eb-6c7b-496d-bf02-52e99067d3f8> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://abctravelcia.com/several-types-of-website-marketing-tactics/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.943218 | 963 | 2.046875 | 2 |
The Bridge Hub 2020 Water Challenge is an Australian, New Zealand and Israel challenge aiming to identify researchers and entrepreneurs who have solutions that can change the status quo of water within the agrisystem. Prizes will be offered across multiple challenge streams for the solutions that will massively turn the dial on how we can be smarter with our water. Applications will close at 23:59 AEST on 7 August 2020.
Water is our most precious natural resource, however, water scarcity and quality is being exacerbated by changes to our climate. Irrigated agriculture represents 20% of global cultivated land, accounting for 40% of worldwide food production utilising 70% of the world’s freshwater. However we need more focus on practical solutions to the problems facing our use of water in the agrisystem.
The water challenge has over A$250,000 in cash prizes on offer for Australian and New Zealand researchers, startups and students. In addition to cash prizes, there is the opportunity for the winners of the research prizes to receive an investment into the commercial outcome of their solution. There is also a prize for an Israeli startup to test and trial their technology in the Australian market and a Trans-Tasman research prize to highlight research collaboration between Australia and New Zealand.
The challenge is focused on water solutions across the entire agrifood supply chain, ‘agrisystem’. Whilst much of the water used in the agrisystem is at the producer level, there are other areas such as food manufacturing, waste water recycling in regional locations or opportunities for other sectors such as mining to apply some of their water efficiency technology to the parts of the agrisystem.
The Bridge Hub 2020 Water Challenge is looking for RESEARCH and STARTUP solutions to the following challenge questions:
- How can the agrisystem use less water and increase productivity and profitability?
- How can we ensure the quality of water optimises the outcomes for the agrisystem and the environment?
- How can we turn arid agricultural areas into vibrant, sustainable and productive regions?
- How can different sectors outside the agrisystem align to optimise water usage?
The winner of the Australian and New Zealand Start Up prizes will receive a cash prize plus the opportunity to have Bridge Hub work with you to find an appropriate location to showcase your technology. The Israeli start up winner will receive a fully paid trip to Australia (up to the value of A$5,000) and work with Bridge Hub to establish a trial of their technology.
About Bridge Hub:
Bridge Hub is a regionally based, globally connected, whole of life cycle innovation hub for the Australian and global Agrifood Tech Industry. We are building a collaborative innovation ecosystem with global linkages and access to testing facilities to create pathways to bring great ideas and research to market. | <urn:uuid:e3df120c-7683-44ba-b9b0-ba5059ad9297> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://agreads.com/2020/07/16/bridge-hub-2020-water-challenge-open-for-entries/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570879.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808213349-20220809003349-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.94111 | 572 | 2.09375 | 2 |
For a few years now, I have been writing in this blog each Friday.
I love doing it.
But there are times when I feel almost selfish.
Times when I get bored with my own words and thoughts.
I start thinking:
“ENOUGH ALREADY about ME!!! Im tired of talking about me!!!”
But that is how writing feels.
When you are in the moment of writing,
it feels as if you could be connecting with lots of people,
you could just be talking to yourself,
yelling into a void of nothing.
You have no way of knowing if anything you are saying
will connect with someone.
When you write it,
you hope it will.
But when you are done writing it,
you have to just let it go,
and not have any expectations,
and just know that what you wrote
was honest and truthful and from the heart.
That is what I have tried to do here,
and will continue to do.
there are times like today
where I am sick of hearing my own story.
I want to hear yours.
August 30th, today, is National Grief Awareness Day.
that is a thing.
The “old me” would not have known about this day,
or given much thought to it.
The new “post-loss” me knows that grief changes you
and alters you at a cellular level.
So making people “aware” of what grief does
and how it all works
is very important to me.
Something I have learned
is that a large part of grieving in a healthy way
includes telling your story.
Telling the story of the people we love
who have died,
and never being ashamed to keep loving them,
and to keep them as relevant, beautiful pieces of our lives.
That is how we keep them alive,
in the world, in our hearts,
and in our minds.
When we remind others that our love story matters,
we also remind ourselves,
to never be ashamed to talk about it,
to smile and/or shed tears at the thought of it,
and to feel them come back to life for a minute or two,
everytime you share a memory.
Id love to hear some pieces
of your story,
Use the comments,
to share their names,
the things you miss most about them,
their favorite holiday or movie or musician,
the way they loved you ,
or anything at all that you want the world to know
about what makes your love story special.
Tell me who they were,
and who they are,
and how you have navigated life
without them here on earth.
How are you doing?
I would bet that if we could somehow
ask your person,
how you are doing,
they would say with a smile:
“She / he is absolutely amazing,
and I am so proud of them!”
They love us,
and they want us to do well,
they cheer us on,
and our job
here on Earth,
is to live the very best life
and to carry them with us,
filled with Pride.
Let’s make them shine today.
Id be honored to hear
Tell me your story. | <urn:uuid:cc632212-437a-4732-a2ff-efdb05dc7c73> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://widowsvoice.com/post/its-about-you/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571147.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810040253-20220810070253-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.96135 | 738 | 1.625 | 2 |
Plant viruses cause significant damage in terms of reduction in quality and quantity of yield in a wide range of crop plants worldwide. The majority of plant viruses are transmitted from one host plant to another by insect vectors. Although viruses are obligate, intracellular parasites their relationship with the insect vector varies from parasitism to mutualism. The central question of my research program is to understand ‘how plant viruses affect biology and ecology of their insect vectors? and (2) what plant and/or insect responses mediate plant-virus -vector interactions?’ To identify molecular and ecological parameters that mediate plant-vector-virus interactions, I am investigating two virus-vector systems. Tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV), one of the ten most devastating plant viruses worldwide is transmitted by Frankliniella occidentalis (western flower thrips), the primary insect vector of TSWV, and Soybean vein necrosis virus (SVNV), a new emerging soybean virus transmitted by Neohydatothrips variabilis (soybean thrips). | <urn:uuid:077faf20-f4fa-40d3-b8a9-35802757f5f5> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.labroots.com/webinar/dissecting-ecological-molecular-mechanisms-underlying-interaction-emerging-soybean-virus-soybean-vei | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570651.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20220807150925-20220807180925-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.918408 | 218 | 2.96875 | 3 |
There are lot of furniture hinges’ types which can be used for various kinds of furniture needs especially door, window, cupboard, and other equipments that need hinges.
Hinge is very essential for furniture and household equipment which requires open and closed section. There are various types of hinge on the market, generally builder or furniture fitter can choose based on what they need.
The fit of these hinges improves the quality and create the furniture to be more ergonomic and of high value. That being said, we have to choose the right type of hinges, here are the list below:
This type of hinge is the most popular one. This hinge used for woody door that can be found everywhere in housing. This is the most popular to use in the process of making door.
There are various size of this type ranging from 3 inches, 4 inches, 5 inches and 6 inches. Butterfly hinge type is widely used for windows or doors and cabinets where the load is not too heavy.
This hinge is one of the spoon hinge’s type. If this hinge is installed the only the door is visible. The installation process is no different with other types, the only difference is the size of the door.
Spoon Hinge – Concealed Hinge
Spoon hinge has many variations such as bent hinge and straight ones. Generally used in door or cupboard. We can use this hinge on door cabinet, cupboard, and other similar furniture.
Similar with the butterfly hinge, pane hinge is the option for bigger and heavier furniture stuff. Generally, these hinges have greater thickness and durability than butterfly types. The size is ranging from 3 inches, 4 inches, 5 inches, and 6 inches.
This type used in warehouse door or bigger garage gate. The shape is long and tapered for the type of lined door that has a weight on the door.
Double Action Hinge
This hinges shaped like iron tube which has a silinder with smaller hole in its side. It is usually used weld to process its installation. If it used in wooden door generally have to use a plate as its base.
The piano hinge has a very long shape compared to other types. It is named piano hinge because it used to be in a piano cover.
Generally piano hinges are sold in rolls of a certain length such as 2-3 meters. Its use can be cut into pieces according to the needs of the tool or door/cover.
Shaped like letter H, this hinge is suitable for slighter door or tools. With its usage you can pull out or remove the door easily. Generally used for portable doors or windows.
Just like its name, overlay hinge is one of the sub-type of butterfly hinge which has overlay shaped, generally used for cabinets or doors attached to the other side. If you want to make partitions with an angled model, it’s good to consider this type of hinge.
Those are the type of hinge on the market for wooden furniture of glass-made furniture which can be used to make your home or chamber and improve the furniture quality.
Usually carpenters or furniture will understand the use of various types of hinges to get optimal function and efficiency. | <urn:uuid:e3cb6a7e-a5f5-4d20-bb24-7504adb9357f> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://yaletools.com/furniture-hinge/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571147.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810040253-20220810070253-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.938279 | 689 | 1.828125 | 2 |
I Experienced Sexual Violence
If you have experienced sexual violence, know that it is not your fault. We are here for you and can connect you to services, help you think through options, or simply listen. Saint Mary's will support you in whatever you choose to do. You will be believed, you have options, and you are not alone.
Go to a place where you feel safe.
If you feel as though you are in danger, call 911.
- If you live in Residence, go to a trusted friend or your Residence Assistant.
- The Loyola Residence desk (open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week) is a safe place for any student whether they live on or off-campus.
- If you live off-campus, go to a trusted friend or relative.
Get medical attention as needed
- Go to your local hospital emergency room.
- Or, call the Avalon Sexual Assault S.A.N.E. Program (Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner) directly at 902-425-0122.
Disclosing and Reporting
It is important to understand the difference between disclosing your experience and reporting it. Disclosing an experience of sexual violence is when you tell someone what happened. Disclosing your experience can allow you to get support if you need or want it, and does not necessarily involve taking action. Reporting takes place when you share your experience and want actions taken either through the university or law enforcement. It is possible to disclose, but delay officially reporting until you are ready.
- Disclosing and/or reporting, is your choice.
- Learn more about reporting and if it is right for you by contacting email@example.com.
- Other local emergency contacts
If you have experienced sexual violence, there are two ways to share your experience:
- Disclosing- this takes place when you tell someone about your experience of sexual violence. By disclosing your experience you can get support if you need or want it. Disclosing can also be just talking about your experience.
- If you share your experience of sexual violence with an employee of the university, they will be required to complete the Sexual Violence Disclosure & Referral Form (PDF). This form will not collect any identifying information about you, but is used to document sexual violence cases experienced by our students and is for statistical purposes. Completion of the form does not mean you have to take action.
- Reporting- if you want to take action (legal or university action) against the person who caused you harm, you can report your experience to the university's Sexual Violence Case Manager, the Avalon Sexual Assault S.A.N.E. Program (Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner), or the police. During this process you can request action/support that you feel is best for you.
- If you want to report an experience of sexual violence to the university, your starting point is the Sexual Violence Case Manager who will: provide you with university support and assistance, help you explore your support options and help you access services that can help you take action against the perpetrator.
You may choose to disclose your experience to someone and report at a later time. This is okay. However, it is important to consider that if you want to report your experience of sexual violence (take action against the perpetrator), a forensic examination can be helpful for the prosecution of the perpetrator. A forensic examination must take place within seven days of the sexual violence occurring.
Who can you disclose or report sexual violence to?
You may choose to report your experience of sexual violence to the university so a plan can be put in place to help you with university accommodations (if the person who caused you harm is another student) and/or for the university to help you access resources and supports.
How to report to the university:
- Contact the Sexual Violence Case Manager by email, phone or in-person to ask for help reporting your experience.
- firstname.lastname@example.org | 902.491.6676 | Student Affairs and Services, 3rd Floor Student Centre
- The Sexual Violence Case Manager will need the Sexual Violence Disclosure & Referral Form completed. This can be done on your own or together with the Sexual Violence Case Manager. If you choose to complete the form on your own, it can be emailed to email@example.com or dropped off at Student Affairs and Services. The form can be completed anonymously if desired. You can fill-out as much or as little as you want.
Avalon Sexual Assault S.A.N.E. Program (Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner)
The Avalon Sexual Assault S.A.N.E. Program consists of specially trained nurses (sexual assault nurse examiners) that provide medical attention and support to people who have experienced sexual violence. The S.A.N.E. nurses provide care through a trauma-informed perspective and are available to support your immediate medical needs whatever they may be.
S.A.N.E. nurses can perform free forensic examinations, which allows for the collection and preservation of evidence. (You are not obligated to have a forensic examination done, but they can be helpful in the event that you wish to take action against the person that has done harm.) These nurses can also perform testing for pregnancy and/or sexually transmitted infections (STIs).
The Avalon Sexual Assault S.A.N.E. Program is available at any of the four hospitals in the Halifax Regional Municipality by asking for a S.A.N.E. nurse at the emergency room. There is also a 24-hour S.A.N.E. response line that is available by calling 902-425-0122.
It is always your choice whether or not you report the crime to the police. Reports can be made to the police in an effort to pursue criminal charges under the Criminal Code of Canada.
The flow chart, "Reporting to Police" illustrates some of the possible paths that a sexual violence case may take and is explained in greater detail here. To report to the Halifax Regional Police, call 902-490-5020 or call 911 in an emergency.
The Nova Scotia Public Prosecution Service has created a guide that outlines the court process that a sexual assault case may take. The guide can be found here.
Additional resources can be found here.
Confidentiality is essential in making you feel safe to disclose experiences of sexual violence, and to seek support and accommodations. Before you disclose or report information to someone, you have the right to ask about the level of confidentiality you can expect from them.
There are limits to confidentiality. In rare cases, the university may be required to take action without your approval. This happens in cases where:
- There is an immediate threat of serious physical harm to yourself or another person;
- A court order is received for your records (this can include counselling records, notes taken regarding disclosure, or reports made to University Security);
- There is evidence of sexual violence in the public realm (such as video posted on social media);
- The incident involves explicit images of an individual under the age of 18;
- You are under the age of 16;
- You are under the age of 19 and the perpetrator is a parent or guardian.
If one of these situations applies to you, you will be fully informed and supported at every step of the process.
Sexual violence can impact you on many levels and you may experience a wide range of feelings. There is no right or wrong way for you to feel or react. There is no timeline for your healing. Your path to healing is decided by you.
You may experience a wide range of feelings such as shock, fear, disbelief, outrage, confusion, sadness, despair, and anger. There is no right or wrong way for you to feel or react. All of your feelings are valid.
Steps You Can Take
- Seek emotional support. Talk to someone. It can be a , friends, family or by calling the Dalhousie Sexual Assault and Harassment Phone Line at 902-425-1066.
- Practice self-care. Healing is a process, which takes time. If you can find time for self-care, it will help in your healing. Here is a list of things you can ask yourself.
- Have your voice heard. Speaking out about sexual violence and rape culture can be an empowering moment for some survivors if and when you are ready. Alternatively, you may choose to tell no one, tell only yourself, share your story in your self-help group, or confide in trusted friends or family. Anything you choose to do to survive is powerful and is your choice.
If you are a support person for someone who is currently on the path of healing, remember everyone's healing is different and to support them in the way that they want. Also remember to take care of yourself. | <urn:uuid:07ae3c9e-ce78-4770-b809-0f688e9f542e> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.smu.ca/svs/been-assaulted.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573029.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817153027-20220817183027-00264.warc.gz | en | 0.938678 | 1,838 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Don't Tell These Venice Skateboarders To Be Careful
Let's say you're walking down the Venice boardwalk, eating a soft serve and trying not to feel guilty about it after passing the weightlifters at Muscle Beach. Suddenly, a group of fifty girls on skateboards zoom by you on all sides.
If "GRLSWIRL'd" were a verb, it just happened to you.
GRLSWIRL (pronounced "girl swirl") is an all-female skateboard community created as a safe space for girls to learn how to skate. Its founder, Lucy Osinski, started the group after facing regular street harassment while skating around her neighborhood. Daily comments from onlookers ranged from condescending to downright inappropriate.
"People, especially even if I'm just teaching, they'll come up to me and be like, 'Oh don't hurt yourself sweetie,'" she said. "And that's just unwanted, but then there's the actual 'ooh, baby give me some of that,' or 'you're gonna make a man real happy.'"
Dealing with street harassment is all too familiar for women, but when trying to pick up a new activity like skateboarding, it's enough to deter women from skating in certain areas, skating at certain times or even skating at all. This contributes to the gender gap in an already male centric sport.
Sports agent Yulin Olliver represents some of the best professional female skaters in the industry, including Lacey Baker and Jenn Soto. Over the years and across the country, she's heard similar stories regarding what it's like to be a woman skater.
"I'd say 90 percent if not 100 percent of my clients have said at one point that they thought that they were the only female skater in the world," Olliver said. "Women's skateboarding is almost seen now as the counterculture, where men's skateboarding in the past, that was considered rebellious."
Counterculture or not, a shift is taking place within the industry. With the rise of social media, female skateboarders are carving out a bigger presence in popular culture. Rather than wait for the occasional write-up or cover story in a sports magazine, women skaters and skateboarding groups can self-promote on YouTube and Instagram.
This exposure not only helps other women and girls to see the potential in picking up a board, but it also helps empower those already skating to keep improving, showing them they aren't alone in their passion.
Stephanie LaVita, a skateboarder who started a similar group to GRLSWIRL on the East Coast called New England's Female Skateboarding (NEFS), said social media has been pivotal in developing her own community.
For years, LaVita has followed both skate groups as well as professional female skaters on Instagram. "When you see somebody doing something that you're interested in on a phone it becomes more realistic, especially if that person's the same age or you can identify with them."
Though groups like GRLSWIRL and NEFS started as a way to feel safer out on the street, they've evolved into spaces where women can feel less self-conscious while messing around and trying new tricks.
"They're like wild animals at this point,"LaVita said of her friends. "They don't care if they're falling with each other. They laugh. They make fools of themselves because they're confident and they feel comfortable with who they're skating with."
Judgment-free environments like these are breeding grounds for talent, and it's no surprise that professional female skaters are now scoring contracts with major brands like Vans and Nike. Women's skateboarding will even make its first Olympic appearance when the sport debuts at the upcoming 2020 games in Tokyo.
But all these big moments for female skating are made possible by tackling small hurdles as a new skater, and Osinski wants GRLSWIRL to be there while its members figure out their place in the sport.
"The biggest thing for us is making skateboarding less intimidating," she said. "You don't have to be a badass, you don't have to be a ripper, you don't have to be from California and have wavy, beach-like hair. You could be a girl with a 9-to-5, you could be a farmer, a clothing designer, an engineer -- it doesn't matter.
"You can still get on a skateboard."
If you're interested in skating with GRLSWIRL, they host bi-weekly open skate sessions in Venice. Follow them on Instagram @GRLSWIRL to get updates on the next one.
You made it! Congrats, you read the entire story, you gorgeous human. This story was made possible by generous people like you. Independent, local journalism costs $$$$$. And now that LAist is part of KPCC, we rely on that support. So if you aren't already, be one of us! Help us help you live your best life in Southern California. Donate now. | <urn:uuid:68e7f770-018e-4bda-9c1f-3dbaf7a5469f> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://laist.com/news/entertainment/these-women-skateboarders-arent-letting-the-gender-gap-or-catcallers-grind-them-down | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571147.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810040253-20220810070253-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.973239 | 1,054 | 1.609375 | 2 |
A Golden Opportunity to Boost Your Quality of Life
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” – Hamlet
Conventional Western medicine and its doctors are the finest in the world for dealing with acute care such as the diagnosis and treatment of trauma or short-duration illnesses in need of urgent care. For example, a traumatic car accident, appendicitis, or a broken leg. For such harrowing situations, I want conventional medicine in my corner!
But to stave off chronic problems or diseases, to better control or even reverse disease states and debilitation, and to train people in the art and science of wellness and self-healing, functional medicine is better suited for developing and maintaining a higher quality of life well into one’s senior years.
What is Functional Medicine?
Functional medicine is personally tailored medicine that looks at how aspects of your health are functioning. Conventional medicine usually finds problems only when severe disease has taken place. Functional medicine looks at the underlying causes of chronic disease rather than simply removing or masking symptoms once they arise. Functional medicine emphasizes true healing, treatment of the whole person rather than a disease, and a partnership between doctor and patient, with the patient carrying most of the responsibility for reclaiming their health. It also embraces the most current science and advancements in medicine that can be of assistance in the early diagnosis and remediation of chronic illness.
Functional medicine tends to emphasize non-toxic interventions, such as botanical medicine and other forms of nutritional supplementation, rather than exclusively relying on pharmaceutical agents. Under the influence of functional medicine, “old age” is not what it used to be, anti-aging is now a science, and optimized living is the “new normal” for people of every age.
Functional medicine can be both a useful complement conventional medicine and/or a much healthier alternative!
Why Do We Need Functional Medicine?
Chronic disease, as a rule, is slow to develop. Examples are diabetes, cardiovascular damage, hypertension, low thyroid, cancer, mental illness, autoimmune disorders like rheumatoid arthritis, and back problems. Long-term predictions for such chronic diseases keep rising because the physical, emotional, and mental effects of stress are overwhelming us. This stress comes from poor diet, a toxic environment, drugs, accidents, nervous system impairments, emotional reactions to life, mental overload, lack of exercise, and insufficient sleep. Even falling in love is stressful (eustress)!
Diabetes is quickly becoming an epidemic, so conventional medicine is planning to target “high risk” individuals with ever-more dramatic drug interventions. Researchers, of course, hope to enhance quality of life while Big Pharma hopes to enhance profits. Yet, the physical, emotional, mental, and economic side effects of drug interventions leave us with a sobering message, one having little to do with healing or quality of life. Isn’t it time for a “sanity check”?
Functional medicine works to keep you from becoming a high-risk disease candidate in the first place. The rule is simple: prevent disease states from developing now so there’s nothing to “treat” later. But if you already happen to be riding the risk rollercoaster (typical for people over 30), you can start reversing some or most of the acquired stress damage by enabling your body to heal itself. This is very different from suppressing disease signs or symptoms with drugs, as is done with statins or thyroid medications to make lab measurements look better.
Who Qualifies For This Type of Proactive Approach?
Here’s the catch. People must qualify themselves to follow the prevention approaches of functional medicine and optimized living. Although a prevention or wellness lifestyle is highly rewarding, it is not for the timid. Such a lifestyle requires us to understand how the Big Five Stress Agents mislead us and reduce our collective wellness. The problem is that most people have fallen victim to the harmful mental pattern of hoping rather than (pro)acting. They hope they will somehow fare better than others whom they know are suffering degraded lifestyles. Hope, however, doesn’t have a good track record for preventing chronic disease. But hey, hope is easy!
So, what are some of the harmful mental patterns you may inadvertently hold because of Big Five Stress Agent influences? Here are a few examples. Do any fit you?
- You’ll pop a pill as a quick fix for almost anything to improve your short-term quality of life.
- You think your doctor’s job is to take charge of your health and “fix” you when symptoms arise.
- Your physical activity has decreased with each passing year because you think you’re supposed to slow down as your calendar age rises.
- You want your body to act and recover as it did in your teens and 20s. Hint: It can’t and won’t without ongoing lifestyle adjustments.
* * * * *
Please consider this: Most cancers incubate 10 years or more before they are finally detectible. An even longer incubation period applies to the metabolic abnormalities that lead to diabetes. What environmental stresses and biological imbalances occur during those incubation years to serve as such fertile ground for cancer and diabetes? It’s the job of functional medicine to answer such questions and provide tailored re-balancing programs for individuals before they find themselves needing drugs, surgery, or medical appliances.
Big Myth (poor information), Big Medicine (a system dominated by insurance interests), Big Pharma, Big FakeFoods (the processed food industry), and Big Chemistry—all exposed in the book, Metamorphosis, by Dr. Charles Webb. | <urn:uuid:0abea187-1dd1-425a-898a-aef7d78d2a9a> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://coreohs.com/functional-wellness/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570651.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20220807150925-20220807180925-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.937591 | 1,189 | 2.390625 | 2 |
By Ritesh Singh, New Law College Pune
Editor’s Note : The World Trade Organization came into being in 1995. One of the youngest of the international organizations, the WTO is the successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) established in the wake of the Second World War. The WTO provides a forum for negotiating agreements aimed at reducing obstacles to international trade and ensuring a level playing field for all, thus contributing to economic growth and development. The WTO also provides a legal and institutional framework for the implementation and monitoring of these agreements, as well as for settling disputes arising from their interpretation and application. The current body of trade agreements comprising the WTO consists of 16 different multilateral agreements (to which all WTO members are parties) and two different plurilateral agreements (to which only some WTO members are parties).
Over the past 60 years, the WTO, which was established in 1995, and its predecessor organization the GATT have helped to create a strong and prosperous international trading system, thereby contributing to unprecedented global economic growth. The WTO currently has 160 members, of which 117 are developing countries or separate customs territories. Decisions in the WTO are generally taken by consensus of the entire membership. The highest institutional body is the Ministerial Conference, which meets roughly every two years. A General Council conducts the organization’s business in the intervals between Ministerial Conferences. Both of these bodies comprise all members. Specialized subsidiary bodies (Councils, Committees, Sub-committees), also comprising all members, administer and monitor the implementation by members of the various WTO agreements.
The World Trade Organization came into being in 1995. One of the youngest of the international organizations, the WTO is the successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) established in the wake of the Second World War. So while the WTO is still young, the multilateral trading system that was originally set up under GATT is well over 50 years old. The past 50 years have seen an exceptional growth in world trade. Merchandise exports grew on average by 6% annually. Total trade in 2000 was 22-times the level of 1950. GATT and the WTO have helped to create a strong and prosperous trading system contributing to unprecedented growth. The system was developed through a series of trade negotiations, or rounds, held under GATT.
In 2000, new talks started on agriculture and services. These have now been incorporated into a broader work programme, the Doha Development Agenda (DDA), launched at the fourth WTO Ministerial Conference in Doha, Qatar, in November 2001. The agenda adds negotiations and other work on non-agricultural tariffs, trade and environment, WTO rules such as anti-dumping and subsidies, investment, competition policy, trade facilitation, transparency in government procurement, intellectual property, and a range of issues raised by developing countries as difficulties they face in implementing the present WTO agreements. The WTO’s rules – the agreements – are the result of negotiations between the members. The current set were the outcome of the 1986-94 Uruguay Round negotiations which included a major revision of the original General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). GATT is now the WTO’s principal rule-book for trade in goods. Through these agreements, WTO members operate a non-discriminatory trading system that spells out their rights and their obligations. Each country receives guarantees that its exports will be treated fairly and consistently in other countries’ markets. Each promises to do the same for imports into its own market. The system also gives developing countries some flexibility in implementing their commitments.
International Dispute settlement:
The WTO’s procedure for resolving trade quarrels under the Dispute Settlement Understanding is vital for enforcing the rules and therefore for ensuring that trade flows Smoothly. Countries bring disputes to the WTO if they think their rights under the Agreements are being infringed. Judgments by specially-appointed independent experts Are based on interpretations of the agreements and individual countries’ commitments. The system encourages countries to settle their differences through consultation. Failing that, they can follow a carefully mapped out, stage-by-stage procedure that includes the possibility of a ruling by a panel of experts, and the chance to appeal the ruling on legal grounds. Confidence in the system is borne out by the number of cases brought to the WTO – more than 300 cases in ten years compared to the 300 disputes dealt with during the entire life of GATT (1947-94).
Following are the main stages in settling disputes under W.T.O
- Establishment of a panel
- Report of the panel
- Adoption of panel report
- Appellate review before standing appellate body
The WTO Secretariat, based in Geneva, has around 625 staff and is headed by a directorgeneral. It does not have branch offices outside Geneva. Since decisions are taken by the Members themselves, the Secretariat does not have the decision-making role that other international bureaucracies are given.
The Secretariat’s main duties are to supply technical support for the various councils and committees and the ministerial conferences, to provide technical assistance for developing countries, to analyze world trade, and to explain WTO affairs to the public and media. The Secretariat also provides some forms of legal assistance in the dispute settlement process and advises governments wishing to become members of the WTO.
The history of settlement of disputes through arbitration may be traced from very ancient times. But in modern times its history dates back from Jay treaty of 1794 between England and America. The next important event in the development of settlement of international disputes through arbitration was Alabama Claims Arbitration, 1872. In this case, America had claimed compensation from Britain on the ground that it had violated the laws of neutrality. The arbitrators gave their award in favour of America and held that Britain was liable to pay compensation. As remarked by Judge Hudson, “the success of Alabama Claims Arbitration stimulated a remarkable activity in the field of international law decisions.” The next important event was the adoption of Hague Convention of 1899, wherein the international law relating to arbitration was codified. Yet another important result of the Hague Conference of 1899 was the establishment of the Permanent Court of Arbitration. This work was completed by the Hague Conference of 1907.
About Permanent Court of Arbitration- It comprises of three institutions: (i) Panel of experts, (ii) Administrative Council; (iii) International Bureau. Each signatory power selects four persons competent in questions of international law and of highest moral reputation. They are inscribed in a list called panel of experts and the aggrieved States select five experts from this panel to constitute temporary arbitration court, situated in Hague, the Administrative Council comprises of the diplomatic representatives of the parties to the convention. The International Bureau Comprising of a General Secretary and certain other employees is also situated in Hague. Some of the most important decisions or awards by the court are North Atlantic Fisheries case (1910), Muscat Dhows case (1912), Savarkar’s case (1911), the Island of Palmas case[i], Canberro’s case (1912), Russian Indemnity case (1912), and Pious Fund case (1920).
– North Atlantic Fisheries Case (1910):
In North Atlantic Fisheries case, under the peace treaty of 1783 between the USA and UK the American citizens had been given some fisheries rights in some part of Labrador, New Foundland and North Atlantic Court. Formerly these rights were used in collaboration with the British citizens. According to Britain the said treaty came to an end in consequence of Treaty of 1812. on the other hand, America contended that the treaty was only suspended. A treaty relating to American Fisheries was also entered into 1818. In 1905, Britain captured certain American Fisheries ships. In this connection there arose a dispute regarding the interpretation of treaty of 1818.
In 1909, America and Britain had entered into an agreement to refer this dispute to Permanent Court of Arbitration.The PCA decided that “the right of Great Britain to make without the consent of the US as to exercise of liberty to take fish, in Art 1 of the Treaty, is inherent to the sovereign of Great Britain.”
– Savarkar’s Case (1911):
Savarkar was an Indian revolutionary who was being brought to India to be prosecuted when the ship was in Marcelese, Savarkar escaped. He was later caught by the French naval Police. But, the captain of the French ship returned Savarkar for the Captain of British ship under the wrong impression that it was his duty to do so. Later on, the French Government requested the British Government to return Savarkar on the ground that the rules relating to his extradiction were not strictly observed.
The PCA in its award made it clear that IL does not impose any obligation to return the criminals after getting them successfully extradicted.
– Russian Indemnity Case (1912):
This case was between Russia and Turkey. Russia had claimed money along with interest and damages as indemnity for Russian citizens and institutions under the Treaty of 1879. Russia and Turkey referred the matter to PCA.
The Court OF Arbitration decided the case in favour of Russia. However, the court in its decision made it clear that turkey was not bound to pay the interest and damages because Russia had waived this right by its conduct.
– Island of Palamas Arbitration (1929):
In this case, the dispute was between America and Netherlands over the island of Palamas. America had claimed to have acquired it under a treaty of 1898 with Spain. This Island was discovered by the Spaniards. On the other hand, Netherlands claimed to have occupied it since 1700.
According to the PCA, Island of Palamas was a part of Netherlands although it was discovered by Spaniards, they never occupied it and established contracts with the inhabitants of the island. Thus, for the occupation of a territory it was not sufficient to have an intention to establish Sovereignity over the territory concerned. It is also necessary to make some actual exercise of such authority.
It has been pointed out by aome critice that the awards given by the Court of arbitration cannot be said to be legal decision because they are generally the miture of law and politics.
They tended to confuse law with a diplomatic solution aiming at both parties.
SETTLEMENT OF INTERNATIONAL DISPUTES UNDER THE AUSPICES OF UNITED NATIONS.
Provisions in the UN charter regarding the settlement of International Disputes.
Chapter VI of the United Nations Charter, on the pacific settlement of disputes, stands at the heart of the Organization’s system of collective security. While the framers of the Charter understood clearly the need for an enforcement mechanism, and provided for the use of force against threats to international peace and security, their hopes for a better world lay in the peaceful resolution of armed conflicts. In recent years, the Council has used Chapter VI in various ways. It has entered into direct dialogue with the parties to a conflict, for example through its discussions with the Political Committee of the Lusaka Agreement. It has tried to work more closely with the Economic and Social Council, and with other regional and subregional organizations, to prevent and resolve conflicts in Africa. While the primary responsibility for the pacific settlement of disputes rests with governments and the parties to the dispute, the Council has many tools at its disposal and can play a key role while pressing those directly involved to make peace.
It is one of the purpose of UN, that the state members should settle their disputes through peaceful means. Under Article 2 of the charter that the member states have undertaken to resolve their disputes through peaceful means and not to resort to force or threat of force to resolve international disputes.
Article 14 of the charter states about that the General Assembly of the UN may make recommendations for the peaceful settlement of International disputes.
Article 33 to 38 of the chapter VI of the charter made the provisions for the peaceful settlement of the international disputes. In accordance with these provisions, if there is a likelihood of danger to international peace and security, then the states should resolve their disputes through judicial settlement, negotiations, good offices, mediation, conciliation, enquiry, or any other peaceful means of their choice.
The Security Council may investigate any dispute, or any situation which might lead to international friction or give rise to a dispute, in order to determine whether the continuance of the dispute or situation is likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security.
Without prejudice to the provisions of Articles 33 to 37, the Security Council may, if all the parties to any dispute so request, make recommendations to the parties with a view to a pacific settlement of the dispute.
Under Article 37 it says that, in this matter the Security Council may also make recommendations in regard to the settlement of disputes through peaceful means. The Security Council has been given wide powers in respect of pacific settlement of disputes. Under article 34, It may investigate any dispute, or any situation which might lead to international disputes fiction or give rise to a dispute. In order to determine whether the continuance of the dispute or situation is likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security, Article 36 states that the Security Council may, at any stage of the dispute of the nature referred above or of a situation of the like nature, recommended procedures or methods of adjustments. The legal disputes should as a general rule is referred to the International Court of Justice.
The parties to the dispute have the duty to continue to seek settlement by other peaceful means agreed by them in the event of the failure of one particular method, should the means elaborated fail to resolve a dispute, the continuance of which is likely to endanger the maintenance of peace and security, the parties under article 37(1) of the UN charter, shall refer it to the security council.
Besides these provisions in the charter, the general Assembly on the 24th October 1970, adopted “The Declaration of Principles of International Law concerning Friendly relations and Co operation among States” provides that “the state shall accordingly seek early and just settlement of their international disputes by negotiations, inquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional arrangements or other peaceful means of their choice.”
The 1970 declaration which is not limited, asserts that in seeking an early and just settlement the parties have to agree upon such peaceful means as they see appropriate to such circumstance and nature of the dispute. It emphasizes the obligation of the state to refrain from the use of threat or use of force and a duty to settle their disputes by amicable means or any peaceful means of their choice. The declaration added that the principle of the charter embodied in the declaration contributed basic principle of the International law and appealed to all states that “To be guided by these principles in their international conduct and to develop their mutual relations on the basis of their strict observance of those principles”.
The declaration was reaffirmed by the manila declaration on the peaceful settlement of international disputes in 1982. It was declared that the states shall seek in a good faith and in a spirit of co operation on early and equitable settlement of their international disputes by any of the peaceful means. It further stated that neither the existence of a dispute nor the failure of the procedure of a peaceful settlement of disputes shall permit in the use of force or threat of force by any of the state parties to the dispute. It states that member state should make full use of the UN including the procedures and means provided for there in particularly chapter VI concerning the peaceful settlement of dispute. Member state should strengthen the primary role of the Security Council, so that it may fully and effectively discharge the responsibilities in accordance with charter of the UN, in the area of settlement of the disputes.
The special committee on the charter of the UN and on the strengthing of the role of the organization at its 1988 session a draft “Declaration on the prevention and removal of disputes and situations which may threaten international peace and security and the role of the UN in this field, it made recommendations as to how the UN and its organ should work to settle the disputes between the states. International Court of Justice as the principle organ of the un also performs important functions in regard to the settlement of the international disputes through peaceful means. The Secretary General of the UN may also become instrumental in the settlement of the certain disputes either through mediation or by offering his good offices.
Unique features of WTO with regards to Dispute Settlement:
Disputes in the WTO are essentially about broken promises. WTO members have agreed that if they believe fellow-members are violating trade rules, they will use the multilateral system of settling disputes instead of taking action unilaterally. That means abiding by the agreed procedures, and respecting judgements.[ii]
Principles while settling off the disputes
The WTO dispute settlement mechanism follows the principle of quick and equitable principle. Here the mechanism would be dealt on the basis of appeal and non-appeal.
A dispute arises when one country adopts a trade policy measure or takes some action that one or more fellow-WTO members considers to be breaking the WTO agreements, or to be a failure to live up to obligations. A third group of countries can declare that they have an interest in the case and enjoy some rights.
A procedure for settling disputes existed under the old GATT, but it had no fixed timetables, rulings were easier to block, and many cases dragged on for a long time inconclusively. The Uruguay Round agreement introduced a more structured process with more clearly defined stages in the procedure. It introduced greater discipline for the length of time a case should take to be settled, with flexible deadlines set in various stages of the procedure. The agreement emphasizes that prompt settlement is essential if the WTO is to function effectively. It sets out in considerable detail the procedures and the timetable to be followed in resolving disputes. If a case runs its full course to a first ruling, it should not normally take more than about one year — 15 months if the case is appealed. The agreed time limits are flexible, and if the case is considered urgent (e.g. if perishable goods are involved), it is accelerated as much as possible.
The Uruguay Round agreement also made it impossible for the country losing a case to block the adoption of the ruling. Under the previous GATT procedure, rulings could only be adopted by consensus, meaning that a single objection could block the ruling. Now, rulings are automatically adopted unless there is a consensus to reject a ruling — any country wanting to block a ruling has to persuade all other WTO members (including its adversary in the case) to share its view.
Although much of the procedure does resemble a court or tribunal, the preferred solution is for the countries concerned to discuss their problems and settle the dispute by themselves. The first stage is therefore consultations between the governments concerned, and even when the case has progressed to other stages, consultation and mediation are still always possible.
|Without appeal||Time period|
|Consultations, mediation, etc||60 days|
|Panel set up and panellists appointed, final report to parties||45 days, 6 months|
|Final panel report to WTO members||3 weeks|
|Dispute Settlement Body adopts report (if no appeal)||60 days|
|With appeal(including 1 year of without appeal it would take additional time period||Time period(previous one year.|
|Appeals report||60-90 days|
|Dispute Settlement Body adopts appeals report||30 days|
Panels adjudicating the disputes:
Panels are like tribunals. But unlike in a normal tribunal, the panellists are usually chosen in consultation with the countries in dispute. Only if the two sides cannot agree does the WTO director-general appoint them.
Panels consist of three (possibly five) experts from different countries who examine the evidence and decide who is right and who is wrong. The panel’s report is passed to the Dispute Settlement Body, which can only reject the report by consensus.
Panelists for each case may be chosen from an indicative list of well-qualified candidates nominated by WTO Members, although others may be considered as well, including those who have formerly served as panelist. Panelists serve in their individual capacities. They cannot receive instructions from any government. The indicative list is maintained by the Secretariat and periodically revised according to any modifications or additions submitted by Members.
Method of adjudication:
Settling disputes is the responsibility of the Dispute Settlement Body (the General Council in another guise), which consists of all WTO members. The Dispute Settlement Body has the sole authority to establish “panels” of experts to consider the case, and to accept or reject the panels’ findings or the results of an appeal. It monitors the implementation of the rulings and recommendations, and has the power to authorize retaliation when a country does not comply with a ruling.
First stage: consultation (up to 60 days). Before taking any other actions the countries in dispute have to talk to each other to see if they can settle their differences by themselves. If that fails, they can also ask the WTO director-general to mediate or try to help in any other way.
Second stage: the panel (up to 45 days for a panel to be appointed, plus 6 months for the panel to conclude). If consultations fail, the complaining country can ask for a panel to be appointed. The country “in the dock” can block the creation of a panel once, but when the Dispute Settlement Body meets for a second time, the appointment can no longer be blocked (unless there is a consensus against appointing the panel).
Officially, the panel is helping the Dispute Settlement Body make rulings or recommendations. But because the panel’s report can only be rejected by consensus in the Dispute Settlement Body, its conclusions are difficult to overturn. The panel’s findings have to be based on the agreements cited.
The panel’s final report should normally be given to the parties to the dispute within six months. In cases of urgency, including those concerning perishable goods, the deadline is shortened to three months.
The agreement describes in some detail how the panels are to work. The main stages are:
Before the first hearing: each side in the dispute presents its case in writing to the panel.
First hearing: the case for the complaining country and defence: the complaining country (or countries), the responding country, and those that have announced they have an interest in the dispute, make their case at the panel’s first hearing.
Rebuttals: the countries involved submit written rebuttals and present oral arguments at the panel’s second meeting.
Experts: if one side raises scientific or other technical matters, the panel may consult experts or appoint an expert review group to prepare an advisory report.
First draft: the panel submits the descriptive (factual and argument) sections of its report to the two sides, giving them two weeks to comment. This report does not include findings and conclusions.
Interim report: The panel then submits an interim report, including its findings and conclusions, to the two sides, giving them one week to ask for a review.
Review: The period of review must not exceed two weeks. During that time, the panel may hold additional meetings with the two sides.
Final report: A final report is submitted to the two sides and three weeks later, it is circulated to all WTO members. If the panel decides that the disputed trade measure does break a WTO agreement or an obligation, it recommends that the measure be made to conform with WTO rules. The panel may suggest how this could be done.
The report becomes a ruling: The report becomes the Dispute Settlement Body’s ruling or recommendation within 60 days unless a consensus rejects it. Both sides can appeal the report (and in some cases both sides do).
In case of an appeal:
Either side can appeal a panel’s ruling. Sometimes both sides do so. Appeals have to be based on points of law such as legal interpretation — they cannot reexamine existing evidence or examine new issues.
Each appeal is heard by three members of a permanent seven-member Appellate Body set up by the Dispute Settlement Body and broadly representing the range of WTO membership. Members of the Appellate Body have four-year terms. They have to be individuals with recognized standing in the field of law and international trade, not affiliated with any government.
The appeal can uphold, modify or reverse the panel’s legal findings and conclusions. Normally appeals should not last more than 60 days, with an absolute maximum of 90 days.
The Dispute Settlement Body has to accept or reject the appeals report within 30 days — and rejection is only possible by consensus.
WTO and global Administration:
In response to demands for greater accountability and responsiveness in global regulatory governance, global administrative law (GAL) decision-making mechanisms of transparency, participation, reason giving, and review have emerged in many global regimes, the WTO system. This paper shows how three aspects of the WTO regime can fruitfully be understood and evaluated in terms of administration and administrative law. With respect to the WTO’s internal governance, the paper argues that simultaneously strengthening the WTO administrative bodies and subjecting them to GAL procedural disciplines would establish better internal institutional balance and enhance the organization’s effectiveness and legitimacy. With respect to the vertical relation between the WTO and its members, it shows how the WTO has secured far reaching adoption of GAL disciplines by domestic regulatory administrations, to the benefit of foreign but also of domestic interests. With respect to the horizontal dimension of the WTO’s relation with other global standard-setting bodies, it argues that the WTO should make compliance with GAL procedures a condition for according WTO recognition to such bodies’ regulatory standards.
WTO and Global Administrative law:
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is one of the most acclaimed and condemned of international organizations. It has enjoyed considerable success in implementing the Marrakesh accords, extending trade liberalization beyond goods, dealing with non-tariff regulatory barriers to trade, and securing intellectual property rights. Yet the WTO has also been subject to stringent criticism by civil society organizations and some members for closed decision making, an unduly narrow trade focus, domination by powerful members and economic and financial interests, and disregard of social and environmental values and the interests of many developing countries and their citizens. These divergent reactions reflect the largely successful expansion of the WTO’s trade liberalization agenda, the consequent increase in the social and economic issues encompassed by its trade disciplines, the deepening penetration of those disciplines into administration, and the character of the WTO’s governance institutions and its interactions with other international regimes. Administering more than 2,000 rules on international trade, the WTO has a relatively unusual tripartite governance structure, with distinct legislative, administrative and adjudicatory branches. The relatively highly legalized dispute settlement branch enjoys considerable independence, but the other two branches operate through relative closed consultation and negotiation among the member states, reflecting a “member-driven” ethos. The organization and its components are deeply challenged by twin imperatives: 1) continually adapting international trade regulatory disciplines in order to expand and secure liberalized trade 2) bolstering it institutional legitimacy against attacks by critics faulting it for secretive decision making and disregard of non-trade interests and values. This chapter examines these challenges in the context of Global Administrative Law (GAL) for multilevel regulatory governance[iii].2 It argues that the challenges faced by the WTO can be addressed by greater application of GAL decision- making mechanisms of transparency, participation, reason giving, review, and accountability to the WTO’s administrative bodies including its councils and committees and the Trade Policy Review Body. This chapter also examines how the WTO has instilled GAL disciplines in member state administration, and the potential for extending them to other global regulatory bodies as a condition of WTO recognition of their standards The WTO exemplifies the pervasive shift of authority from domestic governments to global regulatory bodies in response to deepening economic integration and other forms of interdependency. The growing density of regulation beyond the state enables us to identify a multifaceted global regulatory and administrative space populated by many distinct types of specialized global regulatory bodies, including not only formal international organizations like the WTO but also transnational networks of domestic regulatory officials, private standard setting bodies, and hybrid public-private entities. The ultimate aim of many of these regimes is to regulate the conduct of private actors rather than states; private actors including NGOs and business firms and associations as well as domestic government agencies and officials also play a major role in shaping the decisions of these regimes. The various bodies and actors are fragmented yet linked by manifold interactions in a complex pattern of multilevel governance.
Traditional domestic and international law legal and political mechanisms are inadequate to ensure that these diverse global regulatory decision makers are accountable and responsive to all of those who are affected by their decisions. The current reality requires a reframing of the interstate paradigm of traditional international law to a more pluralistic and cosmopolitan framework. At the same time, we believe that the divisions and differences in regimes, interests and values are too wide and deep to support, at this point a constitutionalist paradigm for global governance. Current conditions however, are compatible with and indeed call for development of a global administrative law, which can be applied to particular global regulatory bodies, and their relations with domestic administrations to enhance regulatory governance without positing an encompassing global legal order. Much global regulatory governance – especially in fields as trade and investment, financial and economic regulation – can now be understood as administration, by which term we include all forms of law making other than treaties or other international agreements on the one hand and episodic dispute settlement on the other. Decision making authority in global bodies is increasingly exercised by bureaucracies, committees, expert groups, and networks of domestic officials and private specialists. In response to the need to ensure greater accountability and responsiveness in the exercise of regulatory authority, these bodies are increasingly being held to norms of an administrative law character, including requirements of transparency, participation, reasoned decision and decisional review. We are accordingly witnessing the rise of a Global Administrative Law (GAL).[iv]
The WTO offers a prime example of the most important axes of GAL: the development of mechanisms for transparency, participation, and reason-giving in the internal administrative decision-making processes of global regulatory bodies; the absorption of global administrative law norms in states’ domestic administrative structures and procedures; and the legal issues presented by increasingly close linkages among different global regulatory institutions. The following three sections of this chapter analyze the current and potential future development of GAL mechanisms with respect to each of these three dimensions:
_the internal dimension of the governance of the WTO, most particularly its administrative branch;
_ the vertical dimension of the relations between the WTO and its members’ domestic administrations, which it regulates; and
_ The horizontal dimension presented by the recognition by the WTO of regulatory standards issued by other global regulatory bodies.
This analysis is in part descriptive, examining the extent to which GAL principles and practices have been adopted in each area, and in part prescriptive, outlining the potential for GAL’s further development and application in global trade regulation. A concluding section summarizes the analysis and briefly assesses its significance for legal theory in relation to the rise of global administrative law patterns, contrasting it with the alternative possibility of a constitutionalist paradigm of law for global governance.
The WTO Administrative Bodies and Global Administrative Law:
While episodic Ministerial Conferences and associated processes are responsible for high level rule-making, the daily life of the organization is carried out by the Director General and Secretariat, a few councils, and a large number of committees, which together compose the WTO’s administrative component. The General Council holds an overall supervisory authority over Councils for Trade in Goods, Trade in Services and TRIPS. It deals with the internal budget and administration of the organization, defines the distribution of competencies among the other councils and the committees, and coordinates cross-cutting issues. The three specialized councils, in turn, oversee various committees relating to their own particular parts of the various multilateral and plurilateral agreements. In addition, the important Trade Policy Review Body (TPRB) monitors members’ performance in implementing agreements, addresses questions of application that arise, and facilitates improved implementation of the agreements. The most important functions of the specialized councils, committees and the TPRB, pursuant to Article III of the WTO Agreement, are to review, supervise and promote transparency and accountability in members’ domestic trade and trade-related regulatory policies and administration. The Secretariat is responsible for supporting these bodies’ activities, gathering information on members’ trade policies and measures. In addition, many WTO agreements require members to notify specified WTO administrative bodies of relevant changes in domestic measures that may affect other members. For example, the Anti-Dumping Committee receives notifications about all new investigation processes and measures adopted by members notifications are compiled and publicly available at WTO’s website[v]. The TPRB is even more proactive in exercising its reviewing function. The Secretariat not only gathers information for the TPRB regarding member practices but prepares a draft of a report on each member under evaluation (after consultation with that member); the draft is available to all other members. The value of the TPRB process in providing evaluation and guidance is reflected by the fact that many members affirmatively requested that the TPRB review measures which they adopted in response to the 2008 financial crisis, rather than simply notifying the measures to the respective committees and councils[vi].The Director-General and Secretariat have also launched initiatives on the international trade regulatory implications of the financial crisis and domestic measures reflecting the increasingly proactive of WTO administrative bodies. The administrative functions carried out by the councils, committees and TPRB include significant normative components. For example, the General Council and the Councils on Trade in Goods, Trade in Services, and TRIPS are authorized to grant, under certain conditions, timelimited waivers from otherwise applicable WTO disciplines[vii] administrative bodies lack power to make decisions with authoritative legal effect. Nonetheless, their review and supervision of members’ implementation of the agreements will necessarily involve discussions of the meaning and application of provisions in the WTO agreements, efforts at clarification, and development of working mutual understandings of the most appropriate way of implementing members’ commitments in particular contexts, including issues of domestic institutional structure and procedure as well as substantive norms. The administrative bodies also provide technical assistance to developing country members in implementing their WTO commitments and in participating in international standard setting bodies. This assistance will inevitably involve exemplars of good practice, blending in some cases into interpretation and application of governing legal norms. Taken together, these activities involve a range of normative practices that have appreciable practical significance and influence. All WTO members have a seat on these administrative bodies. Many smaller and less developed country members with small delegations in Geneva complain that they have serious difficulties in keeping abreast of the increasing number of administrative activities, much less actively participating in all of them. [viii]Decisions are taken by consensus through a process of information-sharing, discussion, and negotiation. Each body has its own internal rules of organization and procedure regulating such matters as meetings, meeting agendas, who may attend (including in some cases observers), decisional rules, and other matters.[ix] The activities of the committees are subject to review by their respective councils, and in turn by the General Council, which issues an annual report compiling the activities and main decisions reached by all of its subordinate bodies. These processes of internal administrative review has implications beyond simple compilation of the activities undertaken by the subordinate bodies, As acknowledged in recent annual reports by the General Council, through the General Council review process statements made by members in informal meeting, such as TNC meetings[x], became public, increasing transparency, both internally and externally. In addition, during the review process the supervising council acts as a second level of decision when it evaluates the discussions and decisions in the body being reviewed, which it can approve or disapprove. This process has occurred, for example, with respect to the implementation of sensitive matters to be accomplished within certain deadlines; when the deadline was not met, the General Council was called upon to decide on extensions and in doing so reviewed the work of the subordinate body. Examples can be found in discussions on the Transparency Mechanism for Regional Trade Agreements and the Protocol amending the TRIPS Agreement.[xi]
GAL, by contrast to constitionalism, proceeds at “retail” rather than “wholesale”. As this WTO case study indicates, administrative law concepts and tools derived from domestic or supranational practices can be tailored and suitably adapted to the circumstances of different global regulatory bodies and complexes in order to make incremental but nonetheless significant progress in improving governance. Understanding much global governance as administration allows us to develop a more rigorous conceptual schema of the various institutional structures and relations involved in the notoriously slippery notion of global governance. It does so by focusing the question of accountability in the more precise terms of administrative law, providing us with a set of basic tools for transparency, participation, reason-giving application of these tools can be suitably adapted for application in a wide variety of global institutional settings without insisting on any single design or order. GAL, by contrast to constitionalism, proceeds at “retail” rather than “wholesale”. As this WTO case study indicates, administrative law concepts and tools derived from domestic or supranational practices can be tailored and suitably adapted to the circumstances of different global regulatory bodies and complexes in order to make incremental but nonetheless significant progress in improving governance. Understanding much global governance as administration allows us to develop a more rigorous conceptual schema of the various institutional structures and relations involved in the notoriously slippery notion of global governance. It does so by focusing the question of accountability in the more precise terms of administrative law, providing us with a set of basic tools for transparency, participation, reason-giving application of these tools can be suitably adapted for application in a wide variety of global institutional settings without insisting on any single design or order[xii]. By taking institutions largely as it finds them and relying on procedural disciplines to improve their governance, GAL risks providing a patina of legitimacy without effecting any basic change, and may divert attention from the need for more fundamental reform.108 Further, too much reliance on legal mechanisms to achieve governance goals may end up sapping political accountability rather than compensating for its deficits[xiii]
- International law :- Rebecca M.M Wallace
- Public International Law :- S. K Kapoor
- Cases and materials on International law :- D. J Harris
- Cases and materials on International law :- Malcamshaw
- International Dispute Resolution :- Leila Anglade & John Tackaberry
- International law :- N.K Jayakumar
- Some reflections on the operation of the dispute settlement system of the UN convention on the law of the sea during its first decade :- Robin Churchill
Edited by Kanchi Kaushik
[i] 2 R.I.A.A. 829 (1928)
[ii] http://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/tif_e/disp1_e.htm, visited on 20.1.2014
[iii] See B. Kingsbury, N. Krisch and R.B. Stewart, “The Emergence of Global Administrative Law”, 68 Law and
Contemporary Problems 15 (2005).
[iv] See ibid; D.C. Esty, “Good Governance at the Supranational Scale: Globalizing Administrative Law”, 115 Yale
Law Journal 1490 (2006). The website of NYU Law School Institute for International Law and Justice’s research
project on global administrative law collects a wide range of research papers and other materials on the subject
(www.iilj.org/gal). See also Global Administrative Law: Cases, Materials, Issues, edited by S. Cassese et al.
(second edition 2008) (www.iilj.org/GAL/GALCasebook.asp); Symposium, The Emergence of Global
Administrative Law, Law and Contemporary Problems, Vol. 68:3-4 (Summer-Autumn 2005), pp. 1-385;
Symposium, Global Governance and Global Administrative Law in the International Legal Order, European
Journal of International Law vol. 17 (2006), pp. 1-278; Global Administrative Law Symposium, NYU Journal of
International Law and Politics, Vol. 37:4 (2005). The GAL Project, jointly with leading law schools and research
[v] See <http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/adp_e/adp_e.htm> (June 2009).
[vi] Missão do Brasil em Genebra (Brazilian Mission in Geneva), Carta de Genebra, ano VIII, n. 1, maio de 2009, p.
- References are made to formal and informal meetings in which the issue was discussed, and members’ positions
about it. See also Joost Pauwelyn and Ayelet Berman, Administrative action in the WTO: the WTO’s Initial
Reaction to the Financial Crisis (forthcoming). The authors named the informal initiative embraced by the Director
General as an “administrative action” undertaken by the managerial arm of the WTO (the Secretariat and the DG).
[vii] See Isabel Feichtner, The Waiver Power of the WTO: Opening the WTO for Political Deliberation on the
Reconciliation of Public Interests, Jean Monnet Working Paper 11 (2008) (contending that decisions on waivers
should be a forum to confront and resolve conflicting interests and norms). One example among many is the
authority of the Council of Goods to waive the most-favored nation clause (Article I:1 of GATT-1994) so as to
enable developed country members to grant under certain conditions duty-free or preferential treatment to goods
from least developed regions and countries.
[viii] See Constantine Michalopoulos, “Developing countries’ participation in the World Trade Organization, World
Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 1906, march 1998; Håkan Nordström, Participation of developing
countries in the WTO, mimeo, 2006 (available at < www.noits.org/noits06/Final_Pap/Hakan_Nordstrom.pdf>
[ix] Most councils and committees follow the provisions of the General Council Rules of Procedure (WT/L/28),
sometimes with amendments on matters such as attendance at meetings or decision-making processes.
[x] See, e.g., WTO-WT/GC/117- General Council Annual Report (2008), 19 January 2009; WTO-WT/GC/114-
General Council Annual Report (2007)
[xi] See WTO-WT/GC/114- General Council Annual Report (2007), 21 January 2008; WTO-WT/GC/M/112- General
Council – Minutes of the meeting held on 18 December 2007
[xii] The history of the Basel II capital adequacy standards tends to support this conclusion
[xiii] C. Harlow, “Global Administrative Law: The Quest for Principles and Values’ (2006) 17 European Journal of
International law 187. | <urn:uuid:4819a8b0-e7da-472f-8525-23e8ab3a5d3b> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.lawctopus.com/academike/wto-global-administration-international-dispute-resolution/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571147.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810040253-20220810070253-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.946005 | 9,034 | 3.203125 | 3 |
During their periods, some people may have symptoms such as stomach trouble, bloating, fatigue, and headache. Physical activity may aid in the reduction of these and other symptoms.
Other health benefits of exercise include a better mood, fewer menstrual cramps, and less fatigue. When people may need to modify their regular exercise program while on their period, staying active can be beneficial.
Learn more about the benefits of exercising during menstruation, as well as how to do it safely and effectively.
There are numerous advantages to exercising during a person’s menstrual cycle, and following a few easy guidelines can make it more fun and comfortable.
Incorporate stretching and yoga
Yoga and tai chi are examples of gentle stretching exercises that can help a person relax, enhance blood flow, and feel better during their period.
People who attended frequent yoga lessons had fewer premenstrual (PMS) symptoms and reported less period discomfort, according to a 2016 study. Breast soreness and abdominal edema were also significantly reduced.
Drinking water may also help to alleviate menstruation pain, making exercise more enjoyable. People who drank 54–68 ounces (approximately 8 glasses) of water per day were compared to individuals who only drank when thirsty in a 2021 study. Researchers discovered that those who drank more water during their periods had less acute menstrual discomfort over the first three days.
Try over-the-counter pain relievers
Back discomfort and cramping might make it difficult to exercise when on your period.
Pre-exercise cramping can be reduced by using over-the-counter pain medications including ibuprofen (Advil) and acetaminophen (Tylenol).
After exercising, using ice or a heating pad covered in a cloth can also assist.
Keep period protection with you
A person’s flow can increase as a result of exercise. This occurs because physical exercise can help blood exit the uterus more quickly.
It is important that a person wears a tampon, pad, or menstrual cup suited for a larger flow to prepare for their period.
In the event of leaking, some people may choose to wear black pants. They should also carry a change of underwear or clothes to the gym to change into after their workout.
Here are some of the potential benefits of exercising during your period:
It makes you feel better
Exercise, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, can aid in the reduction of depression symptoms. As a result, if a person is experiencing melancholy, irritation, or rage during their period, exercise may help to improve their mood.
During their period, hormonal changes in the body might make people feel more tired. According to the Office on Women’s Health (OWH), physical activity can improve energy levels rather than deplete them during a period.
Reduces menstrual pain
People who exercised for 30 minutes three times per week for eight weeks had less menstrual pain than those who did not, according to a 2018 study. They came to the conclusion that exercising during and before a period can help alleviate symptoms.
Physical activity does not have to be strenuous or last for a long time to be beneficial. Two 15-minute walks every day can be beneficial. In general, exercise is a healthy decision. It aids in the maintenance of a person’s weight as well as the health of their heart and lungs.
When a woman is on her period and when she is not, exercising is a good idea.
Exercising styles to avoid
There are no restrictions on what exercises people can perform while on their periods, according to the OWH.
A person should constantly take precautions to ensure that they are exercising safely. Wearing safety equipment and not lifting overly high weights without a spotter or support are examples of this.
Overall, people should pay attention to their body throughout menstruation. If a person is really tired, they should lessen the intensity of their workout program to avoid being overly tired.
There is no scientific evidence that people should refrain from doing certain exercises or that they cannot exercise to their full potential during their period.
Excessive exercise might lead a person to miss their period, so it’s important to be aware of this.
Due to hormonal and physiological changes, endurance and high-performance athletes may skip or stop periods. If a person begins to skip periods after beginning an aggressive exercise routine, they should consult their doctor.
A regular menstrual cycle is generally regarded as a sign of healthy health. Missing periods may indicate that a person is overdoing it when it comes to activity.
Exercise during menstruation can aid with symptom relief and is also good for overall health.
People who are on their periods do not need to limit their physical activities unless they are experiencing pain or discomfort, in which case they should slow down. | <urn:uuid:864c0e69-7164-474c-bcc0-7cf88c2290f4> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.nccmed.com/is-it-advisable-to-exercise-during-your-period/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570879.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808213349-20220809003349-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.95989 | 1,138 | 2.5625 | 3 |
We need more nurses to ensure patients have ‘a good death’
The Assisted Dying Bill has pretty much split opinion in the nursing profession just as it has been dividing the House of Lords.
The proposed legislation would mean patients deemed to have less than six months to live could opt for a lethal dose of medication to end their lives.
It is hard to think of many ethical dilemmas as contentious in nursing and that have such passionate advocates on either side of the argument.
Professor Dame Jill Macleod Clark, board member of campaigning organisation Dignity in Dying, has written in this blog calling on nurses to back the bill so that patients’ wishes at the end of their lives are respected.
But Steve Fouch, from the anti-euthanasia alliance Care not Killing, argued that a change in legislation could leave many vulnerable patients feeling a ‘burden’ and under pressure to end their lives.
The government has not agreed to give the Bill parliamentary time so it is unlikely to make it to the House of Commons or become law.
However, whatever the fate of the Assisted Dying Bill, a lot can be achieved now when it comes to improving end of life care. The fact is that the NHS offers some of the best palliative care in the world, but it is not available for every patient and too many are left to die in extreme pain.
One move that could help address this problem is recruiting more nursing staff. The new guidelines from NICE on safe staffing on adult wards is a step in the right direction. But even if wards have a ratio of one nurse to eight patients that only amounts to 7.5 minutes per hour of nursing care for each person being cared for. No one can offer someone a ‘good death’ working under these sort of constraints.
In any case the majority of people would rather die at home. But that option is not always available because of a shortage of district nurses. The RCN has reported that district nurse numbers have nearly halved over the last 11 years. And staff working in the community spend only just over a third of their time on hands on care. Meanwhile people living in nursing homes are not always getting the care they need because there are often insufficient registered nurses.
Nurses have a key role to play when it comes to ensuring patients at the end of their lives have as good a death as it’s possible to have. Making sure that there are enough qualified staff in post to deliver gold standard palliative care is an essential first step to achieving that.
About the author
Elaine Cole is deputy editor of Nursing Standard, published by RCNi | <urn:uuid:77e71355-e1ea-473d-9ce4-1010e07cc411> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://rcni.com/opinion/we-need-more-nurses-ensure-patients-have-%E2%80%98-good-death%E2%80%99-19841 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.967906 | 550 | 2.390625 | 2 |
People have begun isolating themselves across the country – and that means fewer are out and about looking to buy a house.
A survey released Thursday by the National Association of Realtors found that 48 percent of realtors said home buyer interest has decreased due to the coronavirus. That’s triple the number from a week ago, when it was 16 percent.
“The decline in confidence related to the direction of the economy coupled with the unprecedented measures taken to combat the spread of COVID-19, including major social distancing efforts nationwide, are naturally bringing an abundance of caution among buyers and sellers,” said NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun.
The survey, conducted Monday and Tuesday of this week, also found:
- 69 percent of realtors said there is no change in the number of homes on the market due to the coronavirus outbreak, down from 87 percent a week ago.
- 45 percent said the stock market correction and lower mortgage rates roughly balanced out, noting no significant change in buyer behavior.
- 61 percent said there was no change in sellers removing homes from the market, down from 81 percent a week ago.
And, in perhaps the most telling example of the impact the coronavirus is having, 40 percent said home sellers have not changed how they show their house while it is on the market. A week ago, it was 77 percent.
“With fewer listings in what’s already a housing shortage environment, home prices are likely to hold steady,” Yun said. “The temporary softening of the real estate market will likely be followed by a strong rebound once the economic ‘quarantine’ is lifted, and it’s critical that supply is sufficient to meet pent-up demand.” | <urn:uuid:8aab1028-8a98-4777-a420-9c4a4489f1b0> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.themortgagenote.org/realtor-survey-home-buyer-interest-dropping-in-pandemic/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.965637 | 366 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Orton SM, Herrera BM, Yee IM, Valdar W, Ramagopalan SV, Sadovnick AD, Ebers GC; Canadian Collaborative Study Group. Lancet Neurol. 2006 Nov;5(11):932-6.
BACKGROUND: Incidence of multiple sclerosis is thought to be increasing, but this notion has been difficult to substantiate. In a longitudinal population-based dataset of patients with multiple sclerosis obtained over more than three decades, we did not show a difference in time to diagnosis by sex. We reasoned that if a sex-specific change in incidence was occurring, the female to male sex ratio would serve as a surrogate of incidence change.
METHODS: Since environmental risk factors seem to act early in life, we calculated sex ratios by birth year in 27 074 Canadian patients with multiple sclerosis identified as part of a longitudinal population-based dataset.
FINDINGS: The female to male sex ratio by year of birth has been increasing for at least 50 years and now exceeds 3.2:1 in Canada. Year of birth was a significant predictor for sex ratio (p<0.0001, chi(2)=124.4; rank correlation r=0.84).
INTERPRETATION: The substantial increase in the female to male sex ratio in Canada seems to result from a disproportional increase in incidence of multiple sclerosis in women. This rapid change must have environmental origins even if it is associated with a gene-environment interaction, and implies that a large proportion of multiple sclerosis cases may be preventable in situ. Although the reasons why incidence of the disease is increasing are unknown, there are major implications for health-care provision because lifetime costs of multiple sclerosis exceed pound1 million per case in the UK
Sex ratio of multiple sclerosis and clinical phenotype.
Ramagopalan SV, Byrnes JK, Orton SM, Dyment DA, Guimond C, Yee IM, Ebers GC, Sadovnick AD. Eur J Neurol. 2010;17(4):634-7. Epub 2009 Nov 24.
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: In a longitudinal population-based dataset of patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), we have previously observed a substantial increase in the female to male sex ratio in Canada over the last 50 years. Here, we aimed to determine whether this change in sex ratio is related to the clinical course of MS.
METHODS: e calculated sex ratios by birth year in 11 868 patients with relapsing-remitting (RR) MS and 2825 patients with primary progressive (PP) MS identified as part of the Canadian Collaborative Project on the Genetic Susceptibility to MS.
RESULTS: Year of birth was a significant predictor for sex ratio in RR MS (P < 0.0001, chi(2) = 21.2; Spearman’s rank correlation r = 0.67), but not for PP MS (P = 0.44, chi(2) = 0.6; Spearman’s rank correlation r = 0.11).
CONCLUSIONS: An increase in the number of female RR MS patients over time accounts for the increasing sex ratio of MS.
Here are the reports showing an dramatic increase of Ms in women, these women are mainly developing RRMS.
CoI: Ram is a member of Team G | <urn:uuid:7839a80a-5f06-4a1a-bbc1-1814997edad7> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://multiple-sclerosis-research.org/2012/05/research-sex-ratio-with-ms-increasing-in-women/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.92177 | 683 | 2.21875 | 2 |
Building the world's largest telescope has proven to be even more difficult than one might expect. The Thirty Meter Telescope, which has been planned for construction atop of Hawaii's Mauna Kea, has hit a number of snags, but it got a major approval this week. The state's land board granted the project construction approval in a 5-2 vote, but those that have challenged it from the beginning plan to keep fighting.
The telescope's construction was initially approved in 2011, but protesters who were against the project from the get go due to the sacred grounds it's planned to be built on blocked construction attempts numerous times. The project's website was even hacked in 2015. However, the state's supreme court nullified the project's permit in December of 2015 because it had been granted without giving the opposition a chance to officially air their concerns.
The Thirty Meter Telescope stands to give us a deeper view into the universe than we've been able to achieve before. It would be three times wider than the current largest visible-light telescope and have a resolution over ten times better than the Hubble Space Telescope's. Mauna Kea was selected because it offers clear views for the majority of the year with very limited light and air pollution. It's so ideal, there are already 13 telescopes built on it.
The Associated Press reports that the new permit stipulates the project's employees must commit to cultural and natural resources training and adhere to strict environmental regulations. Local residents must also be hired for jobs generated by the project "to the greatest extent possible."
But for many, those requirements aren't enough to justify continued loss of sacred land. Protest leader Kahookahi Kanuha said, "For the Hawaiian people, I have a message: This is our time to rise as a people. This is our time to take back all of the things that we know are ours. All the things that were illegally taken from us." | <urn:uuid:e951d484-0332-4930-9c93-12803106acb7> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.engadget.com/2017-09-29-thirty-meter-telescope-go-ahead-for-now.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.975546 | 387 | 2.921875 | 3 |
Blood Sugar Morning 122 150, High Blood Sugar Symptoms, What Is Normal Blood Sugar Level, What Should An Adults Blood Sugar Be .
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Glucose Metabolism The Bioenergetic Basis For Neurotransmission
overgrow It causes soreness, ache, itching, and other signs in the genital area It isn t just stress and sleep that may cause fluctuations in hormones Illness, bodily ache and trauma, menopause or menstruation can as well.
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How Do You Know If You Have Low Blood Sugar
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Diabetes can also develop on account of pancreatic disease, alcoholism, malnutrition, or different extreme sicknesses that stress the body A low socioeconomic standing for many African Americans hinders access to well being care As the Knowledge Portal is being mined and analyzed, the partnership is in search of to fill in information gaps by executing particular analyses of the information Specifically, researchers are investigating targets of Best herbal remedy for high blood sugar explicit interest by sequencing DNA from select individuals Take advantage of activities developed by leaders in the field of diabetes Listen to partaking talks on the most pressing points in diabetes analysis, remedy and care.
Find out more concerning the different sorts of complications, and Can an infection cause blood sugar to be high what you can do to reduce your danger of growing them For city places, at the first Blood Sugar Morning 122 150 stage, one metropolis was chosen from each province from all 31 provinces of China These 31 cities have been categorized as 10 developed, 13 creating, and eight underdeveloped cities At the second stage, one district was randomly selected from each city At the third stage, two residential communities have been randomly selected from every district At the ultimate Blood Sugar Morning 122 150 stage, eligible individuals who met the inclusion criteria and had been registered as native residents had been randomly selected and stratified by age and intercourse.
Diabetes refers to a group of illnesses that may trigger excessive ranges of glucose within the blood DM types 1 and 2 are both handled with specialized diets, common What Is Normal Blood Sugar Level train, intensive foot and eye care, and drugs Testing may give details about the effectiveness of the prescribed routine and whether any changes need to be made The ADA place statement on exams of glycemia in diabetes recommends routine testing for all sufferers with diabetes It must be part of the preliminary evaluation of the affected person, with subsequent measurements every three months to find out if the patient s metabolic management has been reached and maintained Pathophysiology of diabetes mellitus, together with functions of the pancreas and the long term results of uncontrolled diabetes.
Counseling could additionally be useful in dealing with this continual sickness The protocol for remedy is Blood Sugar Morning 122 150 set by the sort of diabetes sufferers with both sort 1 or type 2 must take note of their diet and exercise regimens Insulin remedy Lower Blood Sugar may be prescribed for patients with sort 2 diabetes in addition to any who re depending on insulin In most circumstances, the type 2 diabetes affected person may be treated successfully by decreasing caloric intake, sustaining goal weight, and selling bodily train Untreated diabetes can result in critical medical issues, Blood Sugar Morning 122 150 including cardiovascular disease.
When ranges are too low, the person may experience hypoglycemia, which is characterised by shakiness, sweating, dizziness, or confusion When blood sugar ranges are too excessive, the individual might expertise hyperglycemia, which is characterized as extreme thirst and urination and blurred vision Blood glucose Blood Sugar Morning 122 150 ranges may be checked by pricking a finger to get a drop of blood and putting it on a glucose meter High blood sugar, or Lower Blood Sugar hyperglycemia, is mostly caused by diabetes, which should be managed and handled carefully beneath a doctor s supervision There are, nonetheless, a lot of easy actions you presumably can take to cut back your blood sugar again Blood Sugar Morning 122 150 to a wholesome level.
MedTerms medical dictionary is the medical terminology for MedicineNetcom Our medical doctors outline tough medical language in easy to understand explanations of over 19,000 medical phrases MedTerms on line medical dictionary supplies quick entry to hard to spell and often misspelled medical definitions through an intensive alphabetical listing In 2004, extra funding of 30 million was supplied for an additional yr Partners in this nationwide initiative include the provinces and territories, non government organizations, nationwide well being bodies and interest groups, and Aboriginal communities.
Too much glucose within the blood can lead to severe health issues that injury the blood vessels, nerves, heart, eyes, and kidneys Some folks might have a blood sugar degree that s higher than ordinary, however not high enough to be recognized with kind 2 diabetes This known as prediabetes, and means you re susceptible to creating type 2 diabetes Awareness, therapy, and management of diabetes and threat components in adults dwelling in China, standardised for age and sex, are presented in table four The proportion of sufferers who were conscious of their diabetes and had been treated was greater Blood Sugar Morning 122 150 within the older population, and the speed of awareness of diabetes was significantly higher in urban than in rural residents The proportion of patients who managed their HbA1c levels properly was larger in youthful patients and in city residents.
Although there are theories as to how these issues might be linked, none has yet been proved This may be because you tend to exercise much less, lose muscle mass and acquire weight as you age But type 2 diabetes can be rising among youngsters, Why is blood sugar regulated by negative feedback Blood Sugar Morning 122 150 adolescents and younger adults.
Therefore, it is important for diabetes sufferers to efficiently monitor their blood sugar ranges and modify the diet accordingly to manage it There are different sorts of meters, but most of them work the same method Ask your health care group to point out you the benefits of each.
For instance, in case you are diabetic Blood Sugar Morning 122 150 and are monitoring your blood sugar, you may get a reading of sixty five mg dl Blood Sugar Levels Normal That is taken into account to be delicate hypoglycemia, and you ll be clever to eat 15 grams of fast acting carbohydrates and retest your blood sugar in 15 minutes Glucose is valuable gas for all of the cells in your physique when it is present at normal ranges The physician exams your blood sugar and it s greater than 200, plus you re peeing more, at all times thirsty, and you ve gained or lost a major quantity of weight They ll then do a fasting sugar Normal Blood Sugar Levels level test or an oral glucose tolerance check to verify the diagnosis.
Sugar is absorbed into the bloodstream, where it enters cells with the assistance of insulin The insulin circulates, enabling sugar to enter your cells The Yes link under will take you out of the Abbott Laboratories family of websites.
Reduction in the incidence of sort 2 diabetes with lifestyle intervention or metformin 8Fajans SS, Bell GI, Polonsky KS Molecular mechanisms and scientific pathophysiology of maturity onset diabetes of Blood Sugar Morning 122 150 the younger The FDA has permitted pregabalin and duloxetine for the treatment of diabetic peripheral neuropathy Tricyclic antidepressants and anticonvulsants have also seen use within the administration of the pain of diabetic neuropathy with variable success T1DM is characterized by the destruction of beta cells within the pancreas, typically secondary to an autoimmune process.
These combined elements play a key role in regulating blood sugar ranges Fish also do not comprise any carbohydrates, so their glycemic index rating is zero But, that doesn t imply all digestible carbohydrates work the same Our our bodies digest excessive fiber foods slower, making the rise in blood sugar more gradual instead of one massive spike Soluble fiber additionally helps Blood Sugar Morning 122 150 scale back blood sugar ranges by enhancing insulin sensitivity Processed carbohydrates, then again, trigger these sharp spikes in blood sugar Blood Sugar Morning 122 150 and increase triglyceride levels.
Counseling could additionally be helpful in dealing with this persistent sickness The protocol for therapy is determined by the kind of diabetes patients with both type 1 or type 2 should take note of their food plan and exercise regimens Insulin remedy could additionally be prescribed for sufferers with type 2 diabetes in addition to What Is The Normal Blood Sugar Level any who re dependent on insulin In most circumstances, the type 2 diabetes affected person could be handled successfully by reducing caloric consumption, maintaining target weight, and promoting physical exercise Untreated diabetes can lead to severe medical problems, including heart problems.
If you keep a blood sugar chart properly, it ll make it straightforward for your physician to put in writing a medical necessity type for you The hormones your physique may produce in response to prolonged stress might prevent insulin from working properly, which is ready to raise your blood sugar and stress you even more If you smoke or use other types of tobacco, ask your doctor to assist you stop Smoking will increase your threat of various diabetes complications Smokers who have diabetes usually tend to Blood Sugar Morning 122 150 die of heart problems than are nonsmokers who have diabetes, according to the American Diabetes Association.
The significant determinants are polymorphisms of sophistication II HLA genes encoding DQ and DR4 DQ8, with DR3 DQ2, present in 90 of T1DM patients Dropping just 7 to 10 of your weight can reduce your risk of kind 2 diabetes Blood Sugar Morning 122 150 in half When you take multiple drug to control your sort 2 diabetes, that s called mixture remedy You may get canagliflozin , dapagliflozin , or Blood Sugar Levels Normal empagliflozin Empagliflozin has additionally Blood Sugar Morning 122 150 confirmed effectibve in decreasing the chance of hospitalization or death from heart failure.
Your doctor will also include all the knowledge within the medical history kind for Blood Sugar Morning 122 150 future reference This monthly blood sugar log is an ideal method to document the developments Then select actions you enjoy, similar to strolling, swimming or biking What s most important is making physical What Is A Normal Blood Sugar activity part of your every day routine.
Thirty minutes of brisk walking a day will cut your threat by virtually a third The pancreas progressively loses its capacity to provide insulin Learn more about the health consequencesof diabetes and how to treat it Appendicitis Anyone of any age can be struck by appendicitis, however it appears to be extra widespread throughout childhood and adolescence.
You aren t born with diabetes, however Type 1 diabetes normally seems in childhood Prediabetes and diabetes develop slowly over time years Gestational diabetes occurs throughout pregnancyScientists do imagine that genetics may play a job .
How Diabetes Can Kill You
or contribute to the event of Type 1 diabetes Something in the surroundings or a virus could set off its growth.
All of the above causes are risk elements that will or may not have the ability to be inhibited Low Blood Sugar They are important to remember of and act accordingly to maintain your self from getting a too excessive or too low blood sugar degree After blood sugar becomes low, the pancreas releases a peptide hormone known as glucagon.
An insulin pump, hooked up to the pocket, is a tool that is worn outside of the body with a tube that connects the reservoir of insulin to a catheter inserted underneath the pores and skin of the abdomen Insulin pumps are programmed to deliver particular amounts of insulin mechanically and when you eat If you manage kind 2 Blood Sugar Morning 122 150 diabetes with noninsulin medicines or with food regimen and train alone, you might not need to test your blood sugar day by day Blood Sugar Morning 122 150 Diabetes Diabetes is a persistent condition characterised by high levels of sugar within the blood.
Others Symptoms of low blood sugar in toddler require that you just examine your blood sugar by operating the receiver over the sensor periodically People residing with diabetes, particularly those with type 1 diabetes, may select to use CGMs These units measure your blood sugar each few minutes using a sensor inserted under the pores and skin These sensors are usually worn for per week or two before they need to be changed.
You also can work along with your doctor and a registered dietitian to devise a routine that s both preventative and sustainable The brain depends on glucose as its primary energy producing substance Low blood glucose signifies to the mind that there is want for meals intake Blood Sugar Morning 122 150 and this triggers sensations of hunger Blood sugar or blood glucose level is the quantity of glucose current within the blood Blood Sugar Morning 122 150 of a human or animal Blood glucose is a tightly regulated biochemical parameter in blood.
Managing your diabetes by staying bodily active, eating healthy, and taking your drugs also can help you prevent or delay imaginative and prescient loss Diabetic retinopathy is an eye situation that can cause imaginative and prescient loss and blindness in individuals who have diabetes It affects blood vessels within the retina the light sensitive layer of tissue in the back of your eye A single Symptoms Of High Blood Sugar blood glucose reading in a veterinary clinic will not be sufficient to diagnose diabetes in all cases Cats can develop a short term elevation in blood glucose as a response to stress, known as stress hyperglycemia.
Of curiosity, research have proven that there is a couple of 35 lower in relative threat for microvascular Blood Sugar Morning 122 150 disease for every 1 discount in A1c The nearer to normal the A1c, the decrease Low blood sugar before menstruation the absolute risk for microvascular problems Diabetes also can end result from other hormonal disturbances, similar to extreme growth hormone production and Cushing s syndrome.
Diagnostic standards for diabetes related disorders are introduced in table 1 Treatment was defined because the proportion of people taking medication for diabetes among those diagnosed with the illness Control was defined as the proportion of individuals with an HbA1c concentration of lower than 70 amongst patients with diabetes who had been taking treatment Conclusion The prevalence of diabetes has elevated barely from 2007 to 2017 among adults residing in China The findings indicate that diabetes is a crucial public well Is 70 to 120 a good blood sugar being drawback in China.
Endocrinology is the specialty of medicine that offers with hormone disturbances, and each endocrinologists and pediatric endocrinologists handle sufferers with diabetes People with diabetes may also be handled by household drugs or inner drugs specialists When problems come up, folks with diabetes may be treated by different specialists, including neurologists, gastroenterologists, ophthalmologists, surgeons, cardiologists, or others.
You ll begin the glucose problem test by ingesting a syrupy Blood Sugar Morning 122 150 glucose resolution One hour later, you may have a blood test to measure your blood sugar degree A blood sugar level beneath a hundred and forty mg dL 78 mmol L is often thought of regular on a glucose challenge check, though this may range at specific clinics or labs Regardless of when you last ate, a blood sugar level of 200 milligrams per deciliter mg dL 111 millimoles per .
What Is Worse Type 1 Or 2 Diabetes
liter mmol L or greater suggests diabetes.
On the flipside, hyperglycemia occurs when your blood sugar is just too excessive, and can occur to nondiabetics Blood Sugar Level Symptoms embody frequent urination, increased thirst and headache If you assume you are hyperglycemic and can t keep fluids or food down, name for emergency What Is Normal Blood Sugar medical help An impaired glucose tolerance test entails taking a concentrated amount of glucose after which measuring blood sugar ranges after two hours Click on the image beneath to view a bigger blood sugar levels chart There could additionally be times when you ve bother reaching your blood sugar objectives.
Talk to your physician about your danger components for diabetes Although you may not have the power to change all of them, you can make changes to significantly decrease your risk Reducing sugar has Blood Sugar Morning 122 150 been demonstrated to help place type 2 diabetes and prediabetes into remission Reduction in sugar has What is range for normal blood sugar been demonstrated to help individuals with kind 1 diabetes also Find out extra about prediabetes, and the things you are able to do to reduce back your danger of growing kind 2 diabetes.
Let s look at the ideal vary in mg dL for each class at different occasions The timings will include pre and post breakfast, lunch, dinner, and bedtime In specific, note any relations who ve had diabetes, coronary heart attacks or strokes Write down any signs you re experiencing, together with any that may seem unrelated.
About 5 of individuals who have diabetes have kind 1 diabetes, or insulin dependent diabetes Type 1 diabetes has additionally been called What Is The Normal Blood Sugar Level juvenile diabetes becuse it normally develops in children and teenagers The variety of individuals with diabetes has practically quadrupled since 1980 Prevalence is growing worldwide, significantly in low and middle income nations The causes are complicated, but the rise is due in part to increases in the variety of people who are chubby, Blood Sugar Morning 122 150 including an increase in obesity, and in a widespread lack of bodily exercise If you might have type 2 diabetes, your physique does not make or use insulin well.
Research shows that sort 2 diabetes could be prevented or delayed with way of life modifications Most cases of ketoacidosis happen in people with established sort 1 diabetes, particularly if they have another sickness or miss insulin doses However, it can be the primary presentation of sort 1 diabetes Insulin is a hormone made by the pancreas, which is a gland located .
What Is The Reading For Diabetes
just below the stomach.
Although the disordered carbohydrate metabolism is normally gentle, immediate detection and treatment are necessary to keep away from fetal and neonatal morbidity and mortality Women recognized with gestational diabetes mellitus ought to have lifelong testing no much less than each three years For all different patients, testing ought to start at age 45 years, and if outcomes are regular, patients must be examined at a minimum of every 3 years.
Patients weren t invited to contribute to the Blood Sugar Morning 122 150 writing or editing of this doc for readability or accuracy See your doctor frequently to observe your diabetes and to look at for issues If you suppose you could have signs of prediabetes, see your supplier.
If you ve an urgent problem, always contact your health care provider or a neighborhood emergency room for recommendation Follow your doctor s suggestions about how typically you take a look at your glucose You may have to test yourself several occasions every day to discover out adjustments in your food regimen or therapy If left untreated hyperglycemia could trigger the client to go into a state of ketoacidosis the place the body begins to process fats to supply the power required for mobile operate This could be because of a scarcity of insulin produced by the pancreas High blood sugar can come about for a selection of causes.
If the values you get hold of in your glucose meter match the laboratory values, then your meter is working well and you are utilizing good approach Blood Sugar Levels Normal People with diabetes ought to seek the advice of their doctor or well being care supplier to set acceptable blood glucose objectives You ought Blood Sugar Morning 122 150 to deal with your low or excessive blood glucose as really helpful by your well being care provider Glucose is a sugar that your body uses as a supply of power.
Learn more in regards to the importance of early analysis and management Taking steps now to enhance your way of life can make an enormous difference and lead to a more Blood Sugar Morning 122 150 healthy future The conference was a wonderful alternative to community with healthcare professionals from throughout the country.
When you don t get enough shut eye, your cravings and want to eat now can go into overdrive That s because leptin reduces and ghrelin increases , signaling to your brain that you have to eat that blueberry crumb Does vyvanse increase blood sugar muffin perhaps even two of them earlier than you re feeling satisfied I recommend to develop your site to be linked with the new diabetic s Instruments as I hope the testing Unites will be produced which does not need to prick fingers for the Blood testing This is inspite of the truth that she just isn t given any drugs after lunch and no meals after 10pm.
As the kidneys turn out to be 359 blood sugar impaired the creatinine degree in the blood will rise Normal ranges of creatinine within the blood vary from gender and age of the person How to Stop Anal Itching Anal itching is the irritation of the skin at the exit of the rectum, often recognized as the anus, accompanied by the will to scratch Causes embody every little thing from irritating meals we eat, to certain ailments, and infections Treatment options embrace over the counter medicines, utilizing moist 207 blood sugar during pregnancy pads, and mild cleansing and drying of the anus.
Oral glucose tolerance test taken after fasting overnight after which again two hours after having a sugary drink The CGM system features a quarter sized sensor worn on the higher arm that Blood Sugar Morning 122 150 eliminates the needs for Blood Sugar Morning 122 150 finger sticks, transmits glucose data every minute, When Charlie O Connell was a university athlete, he lacked resources to effectively manage type 1 diabetes while staying lively The A1c 7 9 average blood sugar result ishyperglycemia, when the extent of glucose within the blood is simply too excessive, in accordance with the American Diabetes Association The healthiest fat are unsaturated fat, which come from fish and plant sources such as Blood Sugar Morning 122 150 olive oil, nuts, and avocados Omega 3 fatty acids fight inflammation and support mind and coronary heart well being.
But transplants aren t all the time profitable and these procedures pose critical risks You need a lifetime of immune suppressing medication to stop organ rejection These medicine can have critical unwanted facet effects, which is why transplants are often reserved Blood Sugar Morning 122 150 for people whose diabetes can t be managed or those that additionally need a kidney transplant Alcohol impacts your blood sugar for as long as it is in your body The results of alcohol on your blood sugar will initially increase because the sugar from alcohol enters your blood, then peak as soon as the utmost amount of sugar in the alcohol has been absorbed If you don t have diabetes, alcohol can increase your threat of creating it and contribute to extra energy and changes in blood sugar because of elevated insulin secretion. | <urn:uuid:0bd66bb3-6ec9-4169-928b-c40f20f607b0> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://redlcau.org/diabetes/blood-sugar-morning-122-150/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570651.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20220807150925-20220807180925-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.918792 | 5,680 | 2.296875 | 2 |
Pork will be on the menu a lot in the coming weeks for Terry Holcomb of Coldspring following a successful hunt for feral hogs on May 18. Holcomb trapped 19 of the reported 40 feral hogs that have been digging up his lawn and tearing up fruit trees.
“The rest of the pigs have left the area. They haven’t been back since Saturday,” Holcomb said.
Feral pig biology and distribution
The feral pig in Australia is a descendant of various breeds of Sus scrofa, the domestic pig. In the north of Australia there is some indication that a number of other species of pigs were also brought to Australia, including Sus celebensis and Sus papuensis.
Records indicate the presence of domestic pigs immediately following the arrival of the First Fleet. Pigs were kept by settlements unrestrained and in semi-feral conditions. Stock could readily escape and wander, and by the 1880s pigs had run wild in NSW.
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Those were the first hogs they saw all morning. Pierce aimed his rifle with the guidance of his dad and shot an about 15-pound hog.
Source: Farmers, ranchers battle feral hog problem | Counties | victoriaadvocate.com
South Carolina DNR 2018 Regulations – Feral Hogs
Feral hogs may be hunted at night on a registered property on which a person has a lawful right to hunt, using any legal firearm, bow and arrow, or crossbow. This includes the use of bait, electronic calls, artificial lights, and night vision devices. A property may be registered online on the SCDNR website (www.dnr.sc.gov/nighthunt), and must be registered annually. It is unlawful to hunt feral hog at night on property not registered with SCDNR. Persons convicted of night hunting for deer, bear, or turkey during the previous five years are ineligible to hunt feral hogs at night.
Source: SCDNR – Rules and Regulations
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Adobe Photoshop 2022 (version 23) PC/Windows [March-2022]
The 20% rule applies to Photoshop, too. Don’t spend more than 20% of your time applying or creating images. Unless you’re making money with Photoshop, it’s not worth it.
Because Photoshop is a tool, it can be used in a multitude of different ways. In this book, we focus on a few powerful ways that you can use the program to make stunning images, while also understanding the best ways to use Photoshop for creating online media for the Web.
PhotoShop/Photoshop Basics: Getting Started
PhotoShop/Photoshop is highly customizable and can allow for extremely easy batch processing. The program enables you to create various effects for images in a single process, as well as making creating and editing a single image much faster than if you were to use a multi-step application. If you’ve ever wondered why some photographers seem to be able to shoot an entire roll of film and breeze through all of their photo editing in a few minutes, it’s because they’re using Photoshop for their entire workflow.
Photoshop comes with a large set of prebuilt graphics, helping to free up your time and save you money on future color matching. It also comes with a lot of prebuilt settings and presets that are perfect for specific types of images. You can easily and efficiently work through images using these tools.
The most basic element of Photoshop is the image. As an image, it’s the canvas on which you apply different effects and adjustments. There is no margin, no border, and no layer palette. You can add new layers over and over, but they start out as one. You can easily manipulate the pixels of an image on a pixel-by-pixel basis with different tools.
Here’s a quick overview of the basic process to create images in Photoshop.
1. Open an image (see Figure 1-1). If you don’t have a project or an image open to work on, it’s a good idea to use this as your launch point.
Some people like to start a project by creating a new image from scratch. This is not always the best way to start a project; however, it does allow you to use the full power of Photoshop for your entire project.
Some people prefer to add a new canvas and start working on it.
2. After you’ve opened the image, you need to place the layers into Photoshop.
3. Create the layers: In this step, you create the basic layers of
Adobe Photoshop 2022 (version 23) Crack [Mac/Win] [Updated]
Adobe Photoshop Elements is a simple and easy-to-use image editing program. For professionals, it may be the preferred choice. For casual users, it will work for basic editing needs.
Download Adobe Photoshop Elements
Adobe Photoshop Elements is available for a variety of platforms. Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS and Android devices. You can download the most recent version from the official website. Just click the app and download it. You can also find the download links on this page.
Adobe Photoshop Elements
Adobe Photoshop Elements is available in the app store. To access the app store, click the application icon, which should appear in the taskbar of the system. You will see the app store there. You can download it from there. You can download Adobe Photoshop Elements from the app store.
How to open Adobe Photoshop Elements
First, install Adobe Photoshop Elements.
If you have just installed the app, you will need to start the program from scratch. You will find it under the applications tab in the app store. To open the program, tap on the app and you will see all the features and options listed.
If you have installed the app previously, you may access the programs with a shortcut. The shortcut would be something like this:
File >> Activate Adobe Photoshop Elements
Adobe Photoshop Elements looks a little different when opened. Its interface is simpler and can be used by anyone.
Once you open it, you will have to select which features you want to use. The program has a basic and advanced option. Advanced users can select most of the editing features.
Basic users and casual users will mostly use the basic option. This option comes with the simple interface. No menu and no features. It will show you the full-screen image.
If you are a beginner, you may want to try the basic feature in Adobe Photoshop Elements. The basic features allow you to select from a number of basic editing techniques, such as Color, Shadow, Hue, Saturation, Lightness, Curves, Text and image, as shown in the screenshot below.
The basic features contain some editing tools that are very useful. They are:
Uncheck a box to deselect or desaturate the selected image’s pixels.
To desaturate an image click on the “Desaturate” icon.
An image color wheel appears.
Adobe Photoshop 2022 (version 23) With Full Keygen
The US death toll from the recent flooding and storms tops 200. More than 3,000 people are still living in shelters. A dozen dead and five missing.
After two days of inundation, Mississippi and Alabama regions suffered the worst impacts. At least 70 people died, three people are reported missing. In addition, more than 200 others suffered severe damage to their homes or businesses.
FEMA spokesman Todd Rogers said the death toll will rise as search and rescue teams continue to comb through the wreckage. Across Alabama and Mississippi, homes are almost completely submerged. Over 500 people are still living in shelters, most of them in Alabama.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) reported that search and rescue teams are assessing the flood damage and they are expected to take much longer than the previous rainy season.
About 1.5 million people are affected by the floods, most of them in Alabama and Mississippi.
According to reports, floodwater has reached the rooftops of some residential homes. In a survey of areas severely affected by the flooding, 3,042 residences were found to be submerged, and tens of thousands of trees have been uprooted.
Meanwhile, a small plane crashed and burned into a pond near the airport in Patuxent River, Maryland. Officials said no one was hurt in the crash.
In China, more than 5,000 passengers have been affected by the massive train disaster in the country’s Sichuan province. A crash occurred on Friday morning between two passenger trains, leading to more than 45 fatalities.
A total of 2,097 people died in the incident, according to the latest news. All of them were crammed into the poorly-built carriage.
More than 150,000 people have been affected by the quake.
The centre of the global financial system is again threatened, as investors are left wondering if the so-called “Fed” – the Federal Reserve – will be able to save the fragile recovery from the massive global financial crisis (GFC).
The chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, has promised to do his best, and to cut interest rates to below zero if necessary.
According to analysts, the plan the Federal Reserve chairman devised to rescue the global economy includes the effort to reduce the money supply, calling it “quantitative easing.”
After Ben Bernanke’s pronouncements, investors have been eager for
What’s New in the Adobe Photoshop 2022 (version 23)?
The 1997 Election
The 1997 Election
With the critical nature of elections, it was important to elect the right person, this time. This election had a lot to do with the state of the economy. This was back when everyone was still shocked by the end of the hea…
With the critical nature of elections, it was important to elect the right person, this time. This election had a lot to do with the state of the economy. This was back when everyone was still shocked by the end of the headache that was the Clinton Administration. It was clear how some of the issues during the Reagan years were going to have big impacts for this country and Obama was getting ready to take office. His domestic policy initiatives were getting warmed up, however, as the fundamentals of taxation and the deficit were not solved and the solution was still up for grabs. It was political and on a broader scope, America was ready for a change.
There were three main things that were happening in the mid 90s. The economy was slowing, the deficit was getting out of control, and people were tired of the party. This last aspect was expressed by the rising debate over drugs and affirmative action. As the economy was slowing, we needed someone with a strong resume. What people were watching was Mr. Clinton’s mounting string of scandals. No one ever doubted his ability to achieve and succeed, but none of the scandals turned him out to be the success that he had touted. As the economy slowed, businesses and corporations began to have more trouble finding good people to fill their ranks. In response, salaries started to creep upward and it became more difficult to hire good people to keep up with the cost of living. Because of this, more companies laid off people. When everyone starts to get laid off, people begin to get angry and resentful towards the government and towards politics as a whole. No politician seems to be trustworthy and it is difficult to know who to vote for.
On the broader scope, we had the election of a black president, which was relatively uncommon at the time. Barack Obama was running as a relatively progressive candidate. He had a great sense of humor and was engaging on issues that the mainstream media would not cover. This led to a growing grassroots support. From this, Obama had garnered a lot of positive media attention. So, with that, Obama was able to capture the imagination of the youth generation and the young voters in general, who now began to see Obama as someone that they could identify with.
System Requirements For Adobe Photoshop 2022 (version 23):
Requires a computer with a 1.8 GHz CPU or better, 2 GB RAM or better, and OpenGL v1.3 (GLSL 140). OpenGL 1.3 is available in all modern Windows OS’s.
Game can be played with 2GB of RAM, but will run a lot slower than with 4GB.
Game will run on PCs of all sizes. No game can run on a 1 GHz processor, regardless of the OS. Some basic functions like music might not work properly.Q:
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Peripheral artery disease is caused by a blockage in the arteries and can lead to all sorts of health complications. It can be diagnosed through blood tests performed by a lab, which you can handle properly by following these protocols. Find Out Exactly What Blood Tests are Needed Before you head off to a lab that can test for peripheral artery disease, you need to find out exactly what blood tests are relevant to this condition.
22 July 2022
Summer is a major season for athletic events of all kinds. It's also the season where you typically hear a lot about sports injuries. Players, coaches, and managers alike all struggle to make sure that their teams have what is needed to recover from injuries as quickly as possible and keep their performance at optimum levels. Could hyperbaric chamber oxygen therapy be the solution to a host of problems? Here's what you should know about their benefits:
21 June 2022
Planning for pregnancy can be a difficult task. You want to make sure that your body is healthy and that you are doing everything possible to care for a baby to grow. If you are thinking about becoming pregnant in the future, you may have some steps you want to take. Start Paying Attention to Diet Your doctor will likely tell you that it is time to start paying attention to what you are eating if you are thinking about having a baby in the future.
18 May 2022
As a woman over 35 years old, did you know you are technically in advanced maternal age? It sounds a little weird since 35 doesn't sound old at all, but if you are pregnant you may need some specialized ob services in order to keep your baby healthy. There are several services that you may require or desire to ease your mind while pregnant. Just a few of the services available to you are as follows.
15 April 2022
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Your hearing aids help you navigate through life and allow you to access the world around you. That is why it is essential to know how to take proper care of your hearing aids so that they can assist you in your life. Change the Batteries Regularly You don't want to wait for the battery to die before changing it with new hearing aid batteries. Moisture can get trapped in the battery compartment.
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Americans recovering from various mental issues can benefit from behavioral therapy. This term refers to multiple types of therapy, including play therapy, system desensitization, and aversion therapy. Therapists use different techniques to treat mental conditions, such as eating disorders, PTSD, ADHD, phobias, OCD, self-harm, and substance abuse. By identifying various destructive behaviors and thoughts, your therapist can prevent self-harm and other negative perceptions. It is crucial to monitor your behavioral health regularly and seek professional help when you feel emotionally compromised.
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California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed a controversial measure yesterday that would delay the closure of natural gas plants and expedite energy generation projects in an effort to avoid blackouts over the next five summers.
The legislation aims to beef up supply on the state’s electrical grid, as it faces a potential shortfall in times of extreme heat. The language came as part of a raft of late bills attached to the $308 billion state budget.
The move angered environmental advocates and groups representing lower-income communities, who said the legislation was rushed through without scrutiny or public input — and could harm the state’s green goals and public health.
The new law shifts power for buying emergency generation projects to the state Department of Water Resources (DWR), allocating at least $2.2 billion to the task. The California Energy Commission will conduct environmental reviews and can bypass approvals from other state and local agencies that normally would review developments.
DWR can use the money to pay for the construction of new plants that use “zero-emissions” fuel like solar, wind and battery storage. For the next year, the agency can buy diesel-powered generators.
DWR can also buy power from coastal natural gas power plants that were slated to close between next year and 2029. The law puts no expiration date on that ability.
Newsom‘s office said DWR will buy generation as part of a “Strategic Reserve” that will only be used “when we face potential shortfall during extreme climate-change driven events (e.g. heatwaves, wildfire disruptions to transmission).”
“The state’s energy plan is focused on ensuring reliability in the face of climate change and affordability for Californians while we accelerate our transition to clean energy,” Erin Mellon, a Newsom spokesperson, said in an email.
California, the nation’s most populous state, sees itself as a national leader on tackling climate change and has pushed for an increasingly green grid. State law requires the grid to use 60 percent renewable sources by 2030.
But record-breaking heat has driven up summer electricity demand. At the same time, the state’s historic drought, wildfires and supply chain slogs have made it tougher to get generation online.
For the next five summers, extreme heat and other climate change impacts will threaten the reliability of California’s electrical grid, state leaders have said. This summer, peak demand could exceed available supplies by as much as 3,500 megawatts, state projections show. That would leave as many as 3.5 million homes without power (Climatewire, May 23).
The result could be a repeat of August 2020, when the state’s grid manager saw that electricity demand would exceed available supplies and ordered rolling blackouts for two evenings during a West-wide heat wave.
“Our energy system is under stress as a result of climate change,” Democratic state Sen. Bob Wieckowski, chair of the Senate budget subcommittee on environmental issues, said in a statement. He voted for the measure. “As we transition to a clean energy future, we need to do all we can to keep the power on until we get more renewable power available. It’s a responsible approach.”
Measure called ‘legacy of failure’
V. John White, executive director of the Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies, called the move “the legacy of failure by the (California) Public Utilities Commission and the previous administration,” meaning that of former Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown.
The CPUC, he said, failed to order utilities to buy more power to replace energy coming from the coastal gas plants due to shut down. They were ordered closed because they use ocean water for cooling and are considered environmentally damaging.
“There’s simply no excuse for having to keep running … the oldest gas plants on our system,” White said in an interview. “They’re heavily polluting, they’re very inefficient and they don’t run very well, and yet we’re giving them new life.”
Last year, the CPUC ordered utilities to buy 11,500 MW of clean power options, but supply chain glitches have hobbled some of that coming online.
The Center for Biological Diversity joined other environmental groups in protesting parts of the measure, including that it would exempt emergency projects from clearance rules under the California Environmental Quality Act, a broad protection law.
While the group wants to see renewable energy projects built, such projects can significantly impact the local environment and endangered species, Brendan Cummings, CBD’s conservation director, said in an interview.
In terms of DWR buying power from coastal natural gas plants, he said, “anytime we set dates for retirement of fossil fuel infrastructure and then say, ‘Hey, we need to keep them open for X number of years longer,’ that’s a sign of our failure of policy.”
The new law also creates a system for the California Energy Commission to get more clean energy projects online.
This agency will offer incentives for construction of locally based green energy that would serve as on-call emergency supply. Such incentives could also go to people and businesses that cut their consumption during extreme events. | <urn:uuid:72a6009d-326f-426d-8c5a-3860c6d55672> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.eenews.net/articles/calif-gives-new-life-to-gas-plants-in-emergency-overhaul/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570879.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808213349-20220809003349-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.953104 | 1,096 | 2.6875 | 3 |
FOOD POLITICS WHAT EVERYONE NEEDS TO KNOW
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FOOD POLITICS WHAT EVERYONE NEEDS TO KNOW
ROBERT PAARLBERG Second Edition
1 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016
© Oxford University Press 2013 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Paarlberg, Robert L. Food politics : what everyone needs to know / Robert Paarlberg.—Second edition. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978–0–19–932238–1 (pbk. : alk. paper)—ISBN 978–0–19–932239–8 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Agriculture and state. 2. Food supply. 3. Food—Marketing. 4. Nutrition policy. I. Title. HD1415.P12 2013 338.1′9—dc23 2013008726
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION OF FOOD POLITICS
1 An Overview of Food Politics
What is food politics?
Is food politics driven by material interests or by social values?
Is food politics a global or a local phenomenon?
Who are the most important actors in food politics?
Has the politics of food and agriculture recently been changing?
2 Food Production and Population Growth Who was Thomas Malthus, and why did he see hunger as inevitable?
Was Malthus ever influential?
Are Malthusians still influential?
Can we feed a growing population without doing irreversible damage to the environment?
Is Africa facing an eco-Malthusian food crisis today?
Do Malthusians try to reduce population growth?
Do Malthusians argue that we should reduce food consumption?
3 The Politics of High Food Prices
When did high food prices become a political issue?
What caused these spikes in international food prices?
How many people became hungry when prices spiked in 2007–2008?
Do international food price spikes cause violent conflict?
Have higher food prices triggered “land grabs” in Africa?
Have subsidies and mandates for biofuels contributed to higher international food prices?
Have higher international prices become a permanent feature of food politics?
4 The Politics of Chronic Hunger and Famine
How do we measure hunger?
How many people around the world remain chronically undernourished?
What causes chronic undernutrition?
Does chronic hunger trigger political unrest?
Is chronic undernutrition a problem in the United States?
Do developing countries have policy remedies for chronic undernutrition?
What is the difference between undernutrition and famine?
When have famines taken place?
What causes famines?
How do famines end?
What has been the most successful international response to famine?
Can famine be prevented?
5 Food Aid and Agricultural Development Assistance
What is international food aid?
Which countries get food aid?
Do rich countries give food aid to dispose of their surplus production?
Why are America’s food aid policies so difficult to change?
Does food aid create dependence or hurt farmers in recipient countries?
Do governments seek coercive power from food aid?
How is agricultural development assistance different from food aid?
How much international assistance do rich countries provide for agricultural development?
Which agencies operate United States agricultural development assistance?
Who benefits from agricultural development assistance?
6 The Green Revolution Controversy
What was the green revolution?
Why is the green revolution controversial?
Did the green revolution end hunger?
Did the green revolution lead to greater rural inequality?
Was the green revolution bad for the environment?
Why did the original green revolution not reach Africa?
What farming approaches do green revolution critics favor?
How have green revolution critics shaped international policy?
7 The Politics of Obesity
Is the world facing an obesity crisis?
How do we measure obesity?
What are the consequences of the obesity epidemic?
What is the cause of today’s obesity epidemic?
Does cheap food cause obesity?
Do fast foods and junk foods cause obesity?
Is the food industry to blame for the way we eat?
Do “food deserts” cause obesity?
What government actions are being taken to reverse the obesity crisis?
Who lobbies for and against stronger policies on obesity?
8 The Politics of Farm Subsidies and Trade
Do all governments give subsidies to farmers?
What explains the tendency of all rich countries to subsidize farm income?
Do farmers in rich countries need subsidies to survive?
Why are farm subsidies hard to cut?
What is the “farm bill” and what is the “farm lobby”?
Is the use of corn for ethanol a subsidy to farmers?
What is the value of promoting corn-based ethanol in the United States?
How do farm subsidies shape international agricultural trade?
Has the WTO been able to discipline farm subsidies?
Do trade agreements like NAFTA hurt farmers in countries like Mexico?
9 Farming, the Environment, Climate Change, and Water
Does agriculture always damage the environment?
What kind of farming is environmentally sustainable?
What is low-impact or “precision” farming?
Do fragile lands, population growth, and poverty make farming unsustainable?
Do cash crops and export crops cause environmental harm?
Do farm subsidies promote environmental damage in agriculture?
How will climate change affect food production?
Does agriculture contribute to climate change?
Is the world running out of water to irrigate crops?
What can be done to improve water management in farming?
10 Livestock, Meat, and Fish
How are farm animals different from crops?
Is meat consumption increasing, or not?
Is a vegetarian diet healthier?
If people in rich countries ate less meat, would hunger be reduced in poor countries?
What are CAFOs?
Are CAFOs bad for animal welfare?
What else generates opposition to CAFOs?
How important are fish as a source of food?
Are wild fisheries collapsing?
Is fish farming a solution?
11 Agribusiness, Supermarkets, and Fast Food
What does the word “agribusiness” mean?
Why is agribusiness controversial?
Do agribusiness firms control farmers?
Do food companies and supermarkets control consumers?
Are supermarkets spreading into developing countries?
Is Wal-Mart taking over food retailing in Africa and India?
Are fast food restaurant chains spreading unhealthy eating habits worldwide?
12 Organic and Local Food
What is organic food?
What is the history of organic food?
How is organic food regulated in the United States?
Is most organic food grown on small farms?
Is organic food more nutritious and safe?
Is organic farming better for the environment?
Could today’s world be fed with organically grown food?
What is the local food movement?
What explains the growing market for local food?
What is urban agriculture?
Does local food help slow climate change?
What is the difference between local food and slow food?
What explains the loyalty of some groups to organic, local, or slow food?
13 Food Safety and Genetically Engineered Foods
How safe is America’s food supply?
How do foods become contaminated?
Who regulates food contamination in the United States?
Is food safety an issue in international trade?
Does the industrialization of agriculture make food less safe?
Is irradiated food safe?
What is genetically modified food?
How are genetically engineered foods regulated?
How widespread are genetically engineered foods?
Why do some people resist GMOs?
Do genetically engineered crops strengthen corporate control?
Are GMO foods and crops safe?
Could genetically engineered crops provide benefits to small farmers in developing countries?
14 Who Governs the World Food System?
Is there a single world food system?
How do national governments exercise control?
Which are the most important international organizations in the food and farming sector?
What has limited the influence of international organizations?
Do multinational corporations control the world food system?
How much power do non-governmental organizations have?
What is the role of private foundations?
15 The Future of Food Politics
In the future, will obesity continue to replace hunger as the world’s most serious food problem?
In the future, will food and farming systems become more localized or more globalized?
In the future, will the spread of affluent eating habits destroy the natural environment?
In the future, will the politics of food remain contentious?
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING
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PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION OF FOOD POLITICS
I am pleased that Oxford University Press is publishing this second edition of Food Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know. In the fast moving world of food politics, new initiatives and controversies are continuously emerging, so readers will stand to benefit from this updated version of the original 2010 book. Those familiar with the first edition of Food Politics will notice a number of important additions and changes here. Prominent among these is a new chapter addressing the politics of meat consumption, livestock farming, and fisheries. In the first edition, issues surrounding meat and livestock were scattered throughout the book in a less organized fashion, and the first edition said nothing about fish, a dietary resource of rapidly growing importance. This second edition also provides more discussion of agriculture’s link to both water and climate change. I offer more about agriculture and the environment in general, including the continuing evolution of agriculture in rich countries toward “precision” systems that help lessen environmental damage. These systems have emerged rapidly in the commercial production sector, yet precision farming remains underappreciated in political debates. In this second edition I have also added a short concluding chapter on the future of food politics.
It was interesting that the first edition of this book produced some heated food politics of its own. Academic reviewers offered praise for the book, but one predicted that it would “drive food activists half-nuts” because it challenged some of their deepest orthodoxies. In fulfillment of this prediction, one activist went so far as to organize a prolonged public campaign against the book. No significant factual errors had been found in the first edition, but my critics did find plenty of arguments and conclusions to disagree with. For those interested in my one public response to this campaign, a short letter I published in the Chronicle of Higher Education in April 2012 can be found online. Respectful engagement with critics is part of the duty of scholars, even when a final reconciliation of differences will remain impossible. My approach here is to present the facts, trying at the same time not to ignore or misrepresent the perspective of those who hold different beliefs or draw different conclusions. Political perspectives are invariably shaped by personal experience. In the first edition of this book I explained that my father was raised on a farm in Indiana, passing along to me an agrarian heritage that I proudly retain. I also mentioned that my concern for rural poverty and undernutrition dates from an early visit I made to India and Nepal, where my brother was serving as a Peace Corps volunteer. I have returned to study and record the evolution of farming in Asia and Africa numerous times since. In this book I try to keep my own personal perspectives in their place, but I cannot pretend they are absent. I take pride in my independence; in my long career as a university-based academic, I have never been funded or employed by any private company. My research has sometimes been funded by private foundations, and sometimes by governmental or intergovernmental agencies, but most often I have turned for research support to the generosity of my home institution, Wellesley College. In my role as a policy expert, I have had occasion to meet with corporate executives,
and a decade ago I did agree to participate, alongside other academics and NGO leaders, in a series of external “sounding board” meetings with scientists and executives from the Monsanto Company, a controversial actor on the food politics landscape, but I asked not to be paid. As for my political leanings, I have always been a registered Democrat. Yet my views on food and farming do not fall neatly into partisan categories. The sections of this book that address food markets and science-based farming are likely to irritate the political Left and please the political Right, but the sections that address food companies, development assistance, climate change, and animal welfare will do the opposite. In modern societies where few people still work the land as full-time farmers, and where markets offer an ever wider range of choices about what to eat, how to eat, and how much to eat, the politics of food has come to extend far beyond material questions of who gets what, or even Left versus Right. Nor is there a unified academic perspective. Biologists and economists routinely disagree with philosophers, ecologists, and sociologists. Originally trained as a political scientist, I try to remain open to multiple perspectives. I share with food activists considerable dissatisfaction with today’s world of food and farming. Too much of our food is unhealthy, too much of our farming is still unsustainable, and too many of our rural societies remain unjust. Our world of more than 7 billion food consumers (heading toward 10 billion) is still not being adequately or properly fed. I may be less scolding toward the present than some, and less pessimistic about the future, but I concede the value of pessimism, for motivating political systems to act. I offer this updated and revised edition of Food Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know as a new starting point for problem solvers of every stripe, in hopes that it can motivate action as well.
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FOOD POLITICS WHAT EVERYONE NEEDS TO KNOW
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1 AN OVERVIEW OF FOOD POLITICS
What is food politics? Since biblical times, the policies of governments have shaped food and farming. The book of Genesis (47:24) records that in Egypt the pharaoh took 20 percent of all food production from his farmers as a tax. Governments in Africa today often burden farmers with taxes nearly as large, usually imposed indirectly through price manipulations by state-monopoly marketing agencies, or through overvalued currencies that implicitly tax the producers of all tradable goods. Meanwhile, governments in wealthy industrial countries usually provide direct and indirect subsidies to farmers, typically at the expense of both taxpayers and consumers. Understanding the dynamics behind such differences in agricultural societies versus postagricultural societies is one of the goals of this book. The food and farming sectors of all states, ancient and modern, foster considerable political activity. Rural food producers and urban food consumers have divergent short-term interests, so they will naturally compete to use the far-reaching powers of the state (e.g., collecting taxes, providing subsidies, managing exchange rates, regulating markets) to pursue a self-serving advantage. We describe such struggles over how
the risks and gains from state action are allocated within the food and farming sector as “food politics.” The distinctive feature of food politics is not just social contestation about food, but political competition to shape the actions of government. If you and I have a personal disagreement over the wisdom of eating junk food, that is not food politics, but if you and your allies organize to advocate new government regulations on junk food (for example, restricting what can be served in public school cafeterias), the disagreement then becomes food politics.
Is food politics driven by material interests or by social values? Food politics is driven by both. In poor countries where a preponderance of all citizens still work in the farming sector and where large numbers of citizens still find it difficult to afford enough food, material interests will tend to dominate. In these societies, food and farming are still a large part of material welfare for all. In wealthy post-agricultural societies, however, farmers have become few in number, and most consumers are easily able to afford an adequate diet. In these societies, material conflicts around food and farming will persist, but social values—such as values regarding the natural environment, or toward animal welfare, or toward the preservation of traditional culture—will begin to play a larger role. Country by country, food politics is often similar to other kinds of politics. In democratic societies, it revolves around the actions of elected government officials who confront pressures from organized non-governmental groups in society. In authoritarian or one-party states, it emerges from official rulings issued by political elites who are less accountable to society. Yet food politics does exhibit a consistent pattern across all countries, linked to the larger process of industrial development. Industrialization brings rapid productivity growth to farming as well as manufacturing, but it also results in a rapid loss of farm jobs, as fewer people are needed to produce
food. In the United States, the share of farmers in the workforce fell from 50 percent in 1870 to only 3 percent by 1990, and only 1 percent today. Meanwhile, urban population and income growth boosts the demand for food and brings a rapid expansion of food-processing companies, private food transport and distribution systems, supermarkets, and food service restaurants. At every step in this process, politically motivated groups of farmers and non-farmers, private companies, and non-governmental organizations struggle to shape government policy in a manner consistent with their preferences. As the farming sector loses numerical strength, organized groups of farmers will begin to take some of the strongest political actions. In the United States, Europe, and Japan during the peak decades of industrialization in the mid-twentieth century, farmers organized to demand escalating subsidies from the state, and they prevailed. Farm lobbies were strong, and by the 1980s, farmers in Japan were getting $23 billion worth of farm program benefits from their government, farmers in the United States were getting $26 billion, and farmers in the European Community were getting $33 billion. These wealthy societies have now moved into a post-industrial stage, and the subsidy policies originally set in place to benefit conventional farmers are being criticized by consumer advocates who want food to be nutritious as well as cheap, by environmentalists who oppose conventional farming methods, and also by a new generation of alternative farmers promoting production systems that are small-scale, diversified, local, and organic. In this setting, a new political dynamic emerges: “food movement” advocates push hard to bring their alternative preferences into the mainstream. Political struggles over food and farm policy within these democratic societies are divisive and polarizing because the opposing positions incorporate conflicting social values, which always makes compromise difficult. Debates over conventional versus organic farming, or over industrial versus small-scale livestock production, or over supermarkets versus
farmers’ markets provide little space for policy agreement. Yet the policies that emerge in democratic states are typically more successful than those within authoritarian or one-party systems. In authoritarian states, where individuals and groups in society lack any institutionalized political voice, serious food policy errors are frequently made. In fact, serious famines have only taken place in non-democratic societies. The worst famine ever recorded took place in China in 1959–1961, during the so-called Great Leap Forward, when radical policy decisions made by the unchallenged ruler Mao Zedong caused an estimated 30 million people to die of hunger. The world’s most recent famines have also taken place in non-democratic states: in North Korea after 1996, and in southern Somalia in 2011.
Is food politics a global or a local phenomenon? According to one widely quoted legislative leader in the United States, Representative Tip O’Neill, “All politics is local.” This holds true for much of food politics. Analysts like to talk about the “world food system,” but to a large extent the world remains divided into many separate and highly diverse national or even local food systems. Despite the growth of international food markets, roughly 90 percent of all food never enters international trade. It is still consumed within the same country where it was produced. In poor agricultural countries, a great deal of the food supply is still consumed within the same community that produced it, or even by the same individual who produced it. In South Asia today, international markets for agricultural commodities play only a small role in personal food outcomes. Only 6 percent of wheat consumption in South Asia is supplied through imports, and only 1 percent of rice consumption is imported. When understanding the food politics of such regions, it will be local weather, local markets, local social conditions, and the actions of local leaders that will matter most.
The heaviest users of world food markets are today’s rich overfed countries, not poor underfed countries, and much of what the rich import is feed for animals, not food for direct human consumption. For example, the world’s biggest corn importer by far is Japan, which uses this grain to produce beef, pork, poultry, milk, and eggs. Japan is willing to import corn for animal feed, but its government maintains tight restrictions on the import of rice, the traditional food staple. Governments in South Korea, India, China, and many poor countries use similar border control measures to avoid dependence on imports of staple foods. These policies frustrate food-exporting countries such as the United States, and they violate the pro-trade advice of international bodies such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), but international food markets have only as much room to operate as separate national governments will allow. In addition to being highly compartmentalized, the world’s food system is one in which nutrition outcomes diverge dramatically country by country, and also person by person within countries. When it comes to food and agriculture, the world is not flat. The wealthy regions of Europe, North America, and Northeast Asia are agriculturally productive and well fed (increasingly, they are overfed), while the less wealthy regions of South Asia and tropical Africa are still home to hundreds of millions of farmers who are not yet highly productive and large numbers of people who are not adequately nourished. In Sub-Saharan Africa today, about 60 percent of all citizens are farmers or herdsmen living in the countryside, and one out of three is chronically undernourished. In South Asia, roughly 400 million farmers earn less than $1 a day, and approximately 25 percent are undernourished. The needs of these people remain unmet in part because their national governments continue to underinvest in the rural roads, water, power, schools, and clinics needed to escape poverty. The rural poor have scant political power (many are women who cannot read or write), so they can be easy for governments to ignore.
In some institutional settings, the politics of food and farming is being addressed within a global frame of reference. For example, agricultural trade restrictions are the subject of periodic global negotiations at the WTO, and global food assistance needs are addressed by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). Yet national and local food and farming systems remain significantly separate and divided, thanks to geographic distance, weak transport infrastructures, divergent cultural and dietary traditions, and large gaps in purchasing power. These diverse and largely separate food systems are shaped by the policies of separate national governments, many of which have different characteristics and divergent priorities. As a result, most policy success or failure in food and farming takes place nationally or locally, rather than globally. Thinking globally is good advice when working on problems such as climate change, telecommunications policy, or international finance, but when considering the politics of food and agriculture, it is often more useful to think nationally, or even locally.
Who are the most important actors in food politics? In every setting where food politics takes place, organizations with divergent preferences will compete for influence. Organizations representing consumers will usually want food prices to be low, while advocates for farmers usually want high prices (except livestock producers, who will want cheap grain to feed to animals). In addition, farmers’ organizations will typically join shoulder to shoulder to resist tight environmental regulations in their sector, and will be supported by the powerful industries that supply them with inputs such as fertilizer and pesticides. Groups claiming to speak for consumers will line up against food and beverage companies when the issue is taxes on junk food or nutrition labeling requirements. In countries with democratic political systems, each of these groups will cultivate its own special friends and supporters inside government, especially within elected legislatures. In
the United States, the organizations seeking benefits for commercial farmers are known as “farm lobbies,” and they make generous campaign contributions to members of the agricultural committees of Congress, ensuring that once every five years those members will propose new legislation (a new “farm bill”) renewing the costly entitlement programs that provide income subsidies to farmers. To guarantee a majority vote for the bill, provisions will be added to win support from potential critics such as urban consumers, humanitarian organizations, and environmentalists, in a standard legislative tactic known as a “committee-based logroll.” Taxpayers will usually be the biggest losers when the logs start to roll.
Has the politics of food and agriculture recently been changing? In today’s advanced industrial and post-industrial societies, especially in Europe and North America, the politics of food and agriculture is undergoing significant change. There was a time when food consumers in these societies wanted just four things: foods that were safe, plentiful in variety, more convenient to purchase and prepare, and lower in cost. Now consumers in these countries are beginning to demand other things as well, such as foods with greater freshness and nutritional value, foods grown with fewer synthetic chemicals, foods grown with a smaller carbon footprint, foods that are locally grown, and foods produced without harm to farm animals. Emerging tastes of this kind among increasingly affluent and aware consumers have not driven low-cost convenience foods off the market by any means, but niche markets are now growing rapidly for foods that are local, organic, “sustainable,” or “humanely produced.” These alternatives have recently risen to dominate social debates, and in the United States, advocates for these alternative approaches are now calling for a new social movement—a “food movement”—capable of exercising hard political power, not just soft cultural influence. In 2013, New York Times food columnist Mark Bittman
likened the emergence of such a movement to several other historic struggles for change, such as the battle to abolish slavery and the long struggle to extend voting rights to women. Within the political arena, however, lobbyists working on behalf of conventional food industries and large commercial farmers continue to retain the upper hand. Much to the frustration of food and nutrition activists, food writers, advocates for farm animal welfare, and proponents of organic or local farms, the food and farming sector continues moving toward greater consolidation, greater automation, more industrialization, and more rather than less globalization. But in cultural terms, the battle lines have been drawn, and the conventional food and farming industry knows that it is under attack. Political leaders, caught in the middle, find it impossible to satisfy both camps. These new political battles over food and farming are also being projected outward, beyond today’s post-industrial societies into middle-income transitional countries and even into poor countries that are still mostly agrarian in character. Through trade and foreign assistance policies, through foreign investment actions by multinational food companies, supermarkets, and restaurant chains, and also through the countervailing advocacy of non-governmental organizations opposed to conventional food and agriculture, rich post-industrial societies are exporting their new debates over food and farming to the rest of the world. In commercial terms, the food systems of the world remain imperfectly integrated; the terms of our food politics discussions and debates, however, have been globalized at a surprising pace.
2 FOOD PRODUCTION AND POPULATION GROWTH
Who was Thomas Malthus, and why did he see hunger as inevitable? Thomas Robert Malthus was an English economist who authored in 1798 a highly influential treatise, An Essay on the Principle of Population. In this essay, Malthus argued that food production could never stay ahead of population growth because it would be constrained by farm land assets that can expand only slowly, while human population tends to grow exponentially. Malthus concluded, “The power of population is so superior to the power of the earth to produce subsistence for man, that premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race.” By this, Malthus meant premature death from war, plague, illness, or widespread famine. It was nothing new in 1798 to predict the occurrence of war, plague, and famine, as these had been recurring tragedies throughout human history. Yet it was entirely new to predict— as Malthus did—that these tragedies were sure to worsen in the future due to the inability of agriculture to keep pace with human fertility. Was Malthus right? In 1798, when he wrote his treatise, the earth had a population only one-sixth as large as today, so the number of people has increased exponentially, just as Malthus
foresaw. The frequency of premature death from hunger and famine has not increased, however. The much larger numbers of people living today tend to live longer and to be far better fed than they were in Malthus’s time. In England, where Malthus wrote, life expectancy at birth doubled over the past 200 years, from 40 years to more than 80 years. Up to the present, then, Malthus has been spectacularly wrong. Yet what about the next 200 years? The earth’s population is still increasing, and determined Malthusians insist that his prediction may yet come true. Dramatic food production gains over the past two centuries allowed the human population to grow from 1 billion up to 7 billion without any increased frequency of premature death, but these gains may not be environmentally sustainable. If the earth’s population increases to 10 billion, as is probable by 2100, a Malthusian limit of some kind may finally be reached. Most suspect not. One study done at Rockefeller University in 2012 concluded that agricultural innovations worldwide had already halted the global expansion of agricultural cropland, even though both population and food consumption per capita were continuing to rise. This study projected that over the coming 50 years, 146 million hectares of land would actually be released from farming globally, an area two and a half times the size of France. If so, this would mark a decisive end to the cropland constraint that most worried Malthus.
Was Malthus ever influential? Malthus was clearly wrong for the first two centuries after he made his prediction, but this did not prevent him from being highly influential, particularly among political elites in England in the nineteenth century. This led to damaging consequences, particularly in England’s colonial territories. Thomas Malthus himself was at one point employed as a professor at the British East India Company training college, and his fatalistic views regarding hunger came to influence England’s
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official policies under the Raj, enabling an indifferent attitude toward the “inevitable” famines that ravaged India during colonial rule. Malthusian thinking also worsened the horrible tragedy of the 1845–1849 Irish famine, when a potato blight decimated Ireland’s principal food crop. England controlled Ireland at the time, and political elites in London did little to provide relief, in part because they judged the famine to be an inevitable Malthusian consequence of Irish parents producing too many children. In this case it was only because England’s political elites embraced Malthusian fatalism that the tragic prediction came true. Fortunately, the Malthusian prediction was failing elsewhere at this time because the assumption that food production would remain tightly constrained by the limited land area on earth had proved badly flawed. The land constraint was progressively lifted beginning in the nineteenth century, thanks to the application of modern science to farming. A cascade of new farming technologies emerged over the two centuries after Malthus wrote his Essay—especially synthetic nitrogen fertilizer and improved seed varieties—allowing crop production on existing farmland to skyrocket. An acre of land today can produce 10 times as much food as it could when Malthus wrote in 1798. These science-based crop-yield gains were particularly dramatic during the second half of the twentieth century. In the United States, average corn yields increased from 34 bushels an acre in the 1940s to 121 bushels per acre by the 1990s and then to 147 bushels per acre by 2011. Yields of corn greater than 200 bushels an acre are now common among farmers using the best new seeds and the most sophisticated practices. Farm productivity increased so rapidly in the twentieth century that the price of food declined (the “real” price, discounting for inflation), even though population and food demand were both steeply on the rise. The real price of farm commodities paid by consumers fell by more than 50 percent in the United States between 1900 and 2000, despite unprecedented consumption
increases driven by high income growth as well as population growth. Malthus also misjudged long-term trends in human fertility. He assumed that birthrates would remain continuously high, thus failing to anticipate the reduction in family size that takes place when societies become wealthier and more urbanized. In urban society, the value of having large families for unskilled farm labor declines, and the payoff from concentrating education investments in fewer children increases. Fertility also tends to fall when more children begin surviving infancy thanks to improved medical practices, and once education and employment opportunities are extended to young women as well as young men. This always leads to later marriage and hence to fewer years of active childbearing per woman. Because of all these factors in combination, fertility drops sharply in all modern industrial societies, and population growth slows as a consequence. In some European countries today, population is actually shrinking—and without any premature deaths from war, plague, or famine. In Estonia, the birthrate has recently declined from 2.1 children per woman (the rate of births necessary to keep the population at a constant number) to only 1.2 children per woman. Rapidly declining fertility is now notable as well in India, Indonesia, Brazil, and Mexico. These declines in fertility have reduced the United Nations (UN) projection of the earth’s peak population from 12 billion down to just 10 billion. Malthus has thus been doubly wrong so far. He expected that fertility would remain high, in the face of lagging food production, but instead we see fertility dropping sharply, even as food production continues a rapid increase.
Are Malthusians still influential? The last interlude of acute Malthusian anxiety came in the 1960s and 1970s, at a time of high population growth in Asia, particularly in India and Bangladesh. In 1967, William and
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Paul Paddock, an agronomist and a former Department of State official, wrote a best seller titled Famine 1975! in which they projected that India would never be able to feed its growing population. The Paddocks even warned that it would be a mistake to give food aid to India because that would keep people alive just long enough to have still more children, leading to even more starvation in the future. Fortunately, this advice was not taken. The U.S. government delivered unprecedented quantities of food aid to India in the 1960s to offset poor harvests, and the larger donor community provided assistance for a significant upgrade in India’s own long-term farming potential—an upgrade that came to be known as the “green revolution.” Improved seeds and fertilizers allowed India’s farmers to boost their production of wheat and rice dramatically, and by 1975, India was able to halt food aid deliveries completely without a famine. Paul R. Ehrlich, an American entomologist who originally specialized in butterflies, made a parallel Malthusian argument in a 1968 best seller titled The Population Bomb. Ehrlich predicted that hundreds of millions would die in the 1970s due to excessive population growth. He even projected that by 1980 residents in the United States would have a life expectancy of only 42 years. Surprisingly, the book continues to be cited, illustrating the persistence of some Malthusian thinking despite actual experience.
Can we feed a growing population without doing irreversible damage to the environment? Modern-day Malthusians often add both a dietary and an environmental component to their argument. Regarding diet, they note that each individual today is more likely to consume more animal products, compounding agricultural demands by requiring the production of more animal feed. Regarding environmental issues, they fear that pushing food production to keep pace with population will result in too many dry lands or
forest lands cleared for farming, and too much groundwater or surface water used for farm irrigation. Biodiversity will be lost. Food production may increase in the short run, but eventually a combination of falling water tables caused by over-pumping, plus desertification caused by the plowing and grazing of dry lands, will push production gains into reverse. This will cause an even more extreme Malthusian collapse, because by then the human population will be even larger. Under this scenario, the most frightening thought is that we may have already exceeded the earth’s capacity for sustainable food production without realizing it. Eco-Malthusian “overshoot and collapse” projections of this kind have been in circulation at least since a 1972 report from an organization called the Club of Rome, titled Limits to Growth. Jared Diamond’s 2005 best-selling book titled Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed also popularized the overshoot idea. Diamond’s account of the disastrous fate of early peoples on Easter Island, Greenland, and the Maya in Central America was intended to drive home the importance of staying within eco-Malthusian limits. The weakness in Diamond’s approach was that he could document vulnerabilities to overshoot and collapse only among pre-scientific societies, those lacking the innovation and adjustment potential found in today’s advanced societies.
Is Africa facing an eco-Malthusian food crisis today? While eco-Malthusian visions are not yet convincing for the world at large, they occasionally emerge as a popular way to understand the particular plight of Sub-Saharan Africa. In this region, efforts to expand arable land area to boost food production, so as to keep pace with population growth, have led to serious environmental damage in the form of forest loss and habitat destruction. Damage to cropland productivity has been severe as well, because population pressures on the land have led to reduced fallow times, hence a more rapid depletion of
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soil nutrients. This in turn has constrained food production. In some African countries, average yields per hectare for some crops have actually declined, and for Sub-Saharan Africa as a whole over the past several decades, total food production per person has barely increased. Between 1990 and 2010, the proportion of Africans undernourished fell slightly but remained close to 30 percent; due to population growth, this number increased to exceed 200 million. Africa’s food problems are severe, yet they do not take the form of a classic Malthusian trap, in which population growth outstrips food production potential. This is because food production in Africa today is far below the known potential for the region. African farmers today use almost no fertilizer (only one-tenth as much as farmers in Europe use), and only 4 percent of their cropland has been irrigated. Also, most of the cropped area in Africa is not yet sown with seeds improved through scientific plant breeding. As a consequence, average cereal crop yields per hectare in Africa are only about one-fifth as high as in the developed world. Africa is failing to keep up with population growth not because it has exhausted its potential but instead because too little has been invested in developing that potential. Typically in Africa today, governments spend only about 5 percent of their budget on any kind of agricultural investments, even though 60 percent of their citizens depend on the farming sector for income and employment. If food production fails to keep up because nobody invests to make farms more productive, that is certainly an acute public policy crisis, but it is not a classic Malthusian crisis.
Do Malthusians try to reduce population growth? Thomas Malthus, in his day, never put much stock in efforts to control fertility. By the twentieth century, however, public and private interventions to encourage “family planning” were commonplace in the industrial world, where births per woman were rapidly declining anyway. It naturally became
popular among modern-day Malthusians to advocate policy interventions to bring down fertility in developing countries as well. In 1974, at a United Nations World Population Conference in Bucharest, rich country governments told poor countries that they should slow population growth. Poor countries responded that what they really needed was more rapid economic growth. International advocacy for aggressive family planning programs in the developing world fell out of favor later in the 1970s, when China’s coercive one-child family policy led to female infants being killed by parents who wanted their one child to be a son, and when a state-sponsored sterilization policy in India led to explosive social tensions between Hindus and Muslims. In the decade between the 1974 World Population Conference in Bucharest and the 1984 International Conference on Population in Mexico City, fashion in the international assistance community shifted from rigid “supplyside” efforts to bring down fertility (e.g., giving men and women access to modern contraception) to a new “demandside” approach that focused on reducing the desire for more children. This demand-side approach was advanced through an emphasis on income growth, increased child survival, and a promotion of education and employment opportunities for girls and young women. Aggressive supply-side efforts to limit fertility also came under attack from the Christian Right in America in the 1980s as one part of a backlash against the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that decriminalized abortion. Abortion opponents did not have the means to dictate policy inside the United States, but they did manage, beginning under the presidency of Ronald Reagan, to place tighter restrictions on foreign assistance programs that support family planning. Mindful that aggressive supply-side efforts at fertility control were no longer acceptable either to the political Left or the political Right, classic Malthusians retreated to the fatalistic pessimism of their original namesake.
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Do Malthusians argue that we should reduce food consumption? For Malthusians who no longer wish to advocate fertility control, the alternative is a call for reduced food consumption per capita. This argument was first popularized in 1971, by a food activist named Frances Moore Lappé, who wrote a widely influential book (3 million copies sold) titled Diet for a Small Planet. The book argued that meat consumption in rich countries was using up scarce land resources to grow grain to feed chickens, pigs, and cattle, when the grain should instead be used to prevent starvation in poor countries. Lappé argued against beef consumption in particular, observing that the protein that beef cattle consumed in feed was 21 times greater than the amount that they finally made available in their meat for human consumption. In a world of tightening food supply, perhaps the only escape would be a move toward vegetarian diets. Reducing meat consumption in rich countries would be good for both human health and the environment in those rich countries, but it would have only a limited impact on food circumstances in poor countries. The International Food Policy Research Institute has used a computer model of global agricultural markets to estimate how much reduction in world hunger would result from a 50 percent cut in per-capita meat consumption from the current level in all high-income countries. Even under this extreme and unlikely scenario, the reduction in child hunger in poor countries would only be one-half of 1 percent. The reason is that meat consumption in rich countries is mostly a result of agricultural resource use in those same rich countries, not in places like Africa or South Asia where most hungry people reside. If rich countries ate less meat, the biggest market change would be an immediate reduction in total crop production in those same rich countries, not an increase in food production or consumption in poor countries. In much of Africa, meanwhile, becoming a vegetarian is not an option. On many dry lands in Africa, there is not enough rainfall to grow cereal crops, so the only source of food can be grass-fed animals, such as goats and cattle.
3 THE POLITICS OF HIGH FOOD PRICES
When did high food prices become a political issue? Most recently high food prices became an intense political issue in 2007–2008, when international market prices for rice, wheat, and corn all spiked sharply upward at the same time. By April 2008, the price of maize (corn) available for export had doubled compared to 2 years earlier; rice prices had tripled in just 3 months; and wheat reached its highest price in 28 years. Riots broke out in a number of developing countries, and it seemed that hunger was certain to increase as well. The New York Times, in a lead editorial, declared these surprising changes a “world food crisis.” Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank, warned that high food prices were particularly dangerous for the poor, who must spend half to three-quarters of their income on food. “There is no margin for survival,” he said. A global financial crisis in 2009 soon caused international food prices to fall, but then in 2010 wheat prices increased sharply once more. Just as this second food price spike seemed to be passing by early 2012, a severe summer drought in the United States sent international corn prices spiking upward yet again.
The Politics of High Food Prices
This unusual series of international food price spikes between 2007 and 2012 reset global expectations and debates on food. The spikes were not just disruptive on their own terms; they called into question what had been a comforting assumption among most economists that over the long term agricultural commodity prices would fall rather than rise, thanks to continued farm productivity gains.
What caused these spikes in international food prices? The cause of these international price spikes remains disputed to the present day. In retrospect, the most powerful explanation was a simultaneous change in the trade policies of countries exporting food into the international market. When food prices started to rise on domestic markets after 2006, numerous states began to restrict exports, to keep domestic prices low. When multiple states do this at the same time, domestic prices will be stabilized but less food will be available for export, so international prices spike upward. More fundamental factors also played a role. Some economists stress a more fundamental supply-and-demand shift within the food sector, as low reserve stocks around the world were combining with high consumption growth in the newly wealthy states of Asia. Others said that the price shift came from beyond the food sector, specifically from higher fuel costs (the price of petroleum was also spiking in 2008), which drove up farm fertilizer costs and led to an increase in biofuel production, such as ethanol from corn, which diverted crops away from food markets. Still others said that the spike came from speculative behavior on the part of international investors, who were moving their money into commodity markets (pushing up not just food and fuel prices but metals prices as well) because investment bubbles in stock markets and real estate were starting to deflate. In 2000 President Clinton had signed a Commodity Futures Modernization Act that reduced regulations governing
the buying and selling of commodity futures by banks and securities firms. This opened the way for much more speculative buying and selling of food commodities, and the volume of these trades did increase sharply after 2006, with impacts on the spot market price. The futures contracts purchased by investors expire quickly, however, and only 2 percent of futures trades result in an actual delivery of goods, so most economists view speculative behavior in futures markets as an unlikely foundation for long-term international price trends. One factor that could not be blamed was a slowdown in food production or in the growth of agricultural productivity. According to calculations from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the annual rate of growth of total factor productivity in agriculture, in both North America and Asia, was significantly higher in the 15 years up to 2007 than it had been in the two decades prior to that period. Physical food shortages were not the cause of the 2008 price spike. Rice prices tripled on the world market in 2008, but global rice production had actually grown more rapidly than consumption during the previous year, leading to an increase in surplus stocks. Another explanation that could be dismissed was Chinese imports. Rapid income growth was driving up China’s demand for food, but China’s own production was also increasing, and China was actually a net exporter of rice, wheat, and corn when international prices were spiking in 2007–2008. From inside the food and farming sector, the single biggest driver behind the exaggerated price spikes of 2007–2008 and 2010–2011 were export restraints, or fears of such restraints. In 2007 economic growth in Asia had been high, fuel prices were up, and inflation fears were on the rise. At this point, a number of countries decided to place restrictions on food exports, to protect their consumers from price inflation at home. China imposed export taxes on grains and grain products. Argentina raised export taxes on wheat, corn, and soybeans. Russia raised export taxes on wheat. Malaysia and Indonesia imposed export taxes on palm oil. Egypt, Cambodia, Vietnam,
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and Indonesia eventually banned exports of rice. India, the world’s third-largest rice exporter, banned exports of rice other than basmati. When these export bans were instituted, international prices began spiking upward, which led importers to panic and to begin buying as much as they could before the price went higher. This of course worsened the price spike. Media reports of shortages proliferated, and panic buying even spread to the United States, where frightened consumers descended on stores to buy rice. In April 2008, the Costco Wholesale Corporation and Wal-Mart’s Sam’s Club had to limit sales of rice to four bags per customer per visit. Memories of the 2008 export bans were still fresh in 2010, when a severe summer drought damaged grain production in Russia. Fearing a possible Russian export ban, importers accelerated their normal wheat purchases, which pushed the international price upward. This in turn pushed bread prices inside Russia to unacceptable levels. In midsummer the government did announce a temporary ban on all grain exports, which kept international prices high for at least the next 9 months. The price spike of 2012 was less severe and was driven not by export bans but instead by an actual production shortfall, namely a severe drought that reduced total corn production in the United States by 13 percent. Episodic shortfalls of this kind are not without precedent. An earlier Midwest drought in 1988 had reduced U.S. corn production by 31 percent.
How many people became hungry when prices spiked in 2007–2008? On this important issue experts also disagree. While the crisis was under way, the World Bank produced a hasty estimate, based on a computer model, which said that the higher international food prices were pushing an added 100 million people around the world into poverty. The media carelessly reported this as documenting 100 million more people going hungry. In the following year, however, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) produced a calculation
specifically asserting that the number of undernourished people worldwide had been pushed from 873 million in 2004–2006 up to 1.02 billion in 2009. There were reasons from the start to be skeptical about the World Bank calculation. It was based on an artificial assumption that when international prices go up, national governments do not change their trade policies to offset the domestic impacts. In fact, it was trade policy changes of exactly this kind that had produced the exaggerated international price spike. The FAO calculation was harder at the time to second-guess, because it was not done in a transparent fashion. The consensus view in the media and in policy circles was that many more people had been made hungry, so the 1 billion number went essentially unchallenged. Several years later, after the panic had passed, the FAO decided to reexamine its estimates, and in 2012 it published a remarkable revision. It adjusted its estimate for 2004–2006 upward, from 873 million to 898 million, and its estimate for 2007–2009 downward. It asserted that the numbers of undernourished people in the world had actually fallen in 2007–2009, during the first peak of the crisis, down to 867 million, and had remained near that lower level in 2010–2012, despite continued high prices and despite continued global population growth. These estimates implied that before, during, and after the peak of the crisis, the percentage of the world’s population that was undernourished had actually fallen, from 14 percent down to 13 percent, and finally down to just 12 percent in 2010–2012. Astute critics took these strangely revised FAO estimates as further evidence that all such calculations are unreliable. Still, the net increase in global hunger earlier estimated had almost certainly been an exaggeration. Most of the world’s poorest people, those most vulnerable to hunger, were not well connected to international food markets, so price movements on the international market were not an especially powerful driver of human hunger. In rural Africa, for example, nearly all food remains local or homegrown, and much consists of
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products seldom traded on the international market, such as goat meat, cassava, yams, and millet. Rural road systems in these countries are so poor and transport costs so high that international price transmission into the countryside is weak. In South Asia, where most of the world’s hungry people actually live, national governments have long used import restrictions to protect their domestic food markets from international price fluctuations. In 2011, for this reason, when the price of wheat was soaring on the world market, prices in India, on the streets of New Delhi, were actually falling. Spikes in international food prices do create serious economic hardship for urban consumers in countries that have allowed themselves to become significantly dependent on food imports, including many in the Caribbean, Central America, and West Africa. The total number of people in this category may not be large, but as urban dwellers they have a large voice for expressing displeasure. For them, a sudden need to spend more for food will mean having less to spend on clothing, shelter, schooling, and other services. If the price increase is temporary, it may not produce much in the way of actual undernutrition, but it will immediately generate social and political unrest. Even if it does not lead to hunger, it will be certain to lead to anger, and urban anger is typically more dangerous to governments than rural hunger.
Do international food price spikes cause violent conflict? The international food price spikes of 2007–2008 and 2010– 2011 were credited with triggering a wide pattern of domestic social and political unrest. The 2007–2008 price event coincided with street protests or riots in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Senegal, Mauritania, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Morocco, Haiti, Mexico, Bolivia, Yemen, Uzbekistan, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and South Africa. In Haiti, food riots caused the death of five people and led to dismissal of the prime minister. Five protesters were also killed in Somalia. In Cameroon, at least 24
people were killed in the worst unrest in 15 years. In Pakistan, the army was deployed to stop the theft of food from fields and warehouses. When international wheat prices then respiked in the winter of 2010–2011, street demonstrations began in North Africa, where wheat flour, used for bread, is a basic staple. During the course of this “Arab Spring,” governments were toppled in Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt. Some analysts concluded, from these events, that international food price spikes had become a dominant new cause of social unrest and violent conflict around the world. When the third price spike began in 2012, this time driven by a U.S. drought, one respected academic warned, in a news interview, “We are on the verge of another crisis, the third in five years, and likely to be the worst yet, capable of causing new food riots and turmoil on a par with the Arab Spring.” This dire prediction, so far, has not come to pass. The Arab Spring, in particular, was a political upheaval that emerged from far more than just food prices. In Tunisia, where the protests began in December 2010, the people taking to the streets were not demanding cheaper bread. Instead they were calling for dignity, the removal of a corrupt government, and more jobs. The crisis began when a young man took his own life to protest not high food prices but an insult from an arrogant government official. When the protests in Tunisia brought the government down, equally restless urban dwellers seeking political change in Libya and Egypt saw their opportunity and took to the streets for the same purpose. These urban dwellers in North Africa were not “hungry.” In Cairo, the price of bread had been held low by government subsidies for so long that average daily calorie intake was at European levels, and diseases linked to obesity were a growing problem.
Have higher food prices triggered “land grabs” in Africa? As would be expected, higher international food prices beginning in 2007 triggered larger investments in agricultural
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production worldwide, including the purchase or rental of underutilized farmland. Many investors—including private firms and sovereign wealth funds from China, India, South Korea, and oil-rich states in the Persian Gulf—saw land in Africa as potentially useful for the production of both food and biofuels. Because most agricultural land in Africa is legally under the control of governments rather than individual farmers (only about 10 percent of land in Africa is formally tenured), foreign investors began approaching African governments, including less scrupulous local officials, with offers to lease substantial areas of farming land. Between October 2008 and August 2009 alone, over 46 million hectares of farmland acquisitions were announced. The obvious risk with such land deals is that the local farming or herding populations currently on the land will be uncompensated for any resulting disruption or destruction of their livelihood. If their land is taken over by investors for mechanized crop farming, or for plantation-style biofuels production, they run the risk of being displaced. Social justice non-governmental organizations (NGOs) were quick to brand this new wave of investments as a “land grab” and to demand stronger protection for local communities. The land grab terminology was apt, but in most cases it was not foreigners grabbing land directly from African farmers; it was African governments and government officials grabbing the land from their own citizens, then making a profit by selling or leasing it to foreigners. Africans saw what was going on and some protested. In Madagascar in 2009, violent street demonstrations broke out over a government plan to lease 1.3 million hectares of land to a South Korean corporation, Daewoo, to produce corn and palm oil. The government was replaced, and the plan was dropped. When the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) studied these issues in 2012, it observed that despite many wild claims about land grabs in Africa, there were very little reliable data. Second, it saw that in many cases
domestic investors had acquired more land than foreigners. Third, the implications for local farmers were seen to depend largely on the crop production systems selected by the investor. If an investor brings in new technology and infrastructure and makes contracted purchases from local farmers, there may be benefits for the rural poor. The post-2007 burst in international land acquisition is still of uncertain significance. Many of the leases negotiated have been slow to result in actual investments on the ground. If international commodity prices fall back down to historical trend levels in the years ahead, the foreign investors might quickly back away. During an earlier price spike interlude in the 1970s, there was a similar burst of interest in acquiring African farmland to supply food to the wealthy Arab states of the Persian Gulf, and most of these investments evaporated after international prices declined in the decade that followed.
Have subsidies and mandates for biofuels contributed to higher international food prices? Higher international petroleum prices were an important food price driver in 2007–2008, since they encouraged a diversion of crops such as sugar, corn, and soybeans away from food and feed markets to produce biofuels, such as ethanol from sugarcane and corn, or biodiesel fuel from vegetable oil. These market-driven diversions were then reinforced by government policies designed to subsidize or even require the use of food to produce still more fuel. In December 2007 the U.S. Congress enacted an enlarged mandate for corn-based ethanol production, up from a prevailing 5 billion gallon level to a minimum of at least 15 billion gallons by 2015. Four years earlier, the European Union (EU) issued its own directive setting a target of 5.75 percent for “renewable” energy use in the transport sector by 2010. China had also been building state-owned ethanol plants, and in 2007 it emerged as the third-largest ethanol producer in the world,
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after the United States and Brazil. With policies such as these in place, 70 percent of all increased corn production globally between 2004 and 2007 went to biofuel use. Higher international corn prices were one result. On the other hand, much of this diversion of food to fuel would have taken place without government encouragement, simply because of higher petroleum prices in the market. If the price of fossil fuel goes high enough, investors will start putting money into biofuels even without government subsidies or mandates. In the summer of 2008, when the price of petroleum topped $140 a barrel, much more U.S. corn was certain to be diverted to fuel use with or without a Renewable Fuel Standard. In fact, ethanol production capacity in the United States was expanded by private investments to a level significantly higher than the mandated capacity because oil prices were temporarily so high. However, as an impression spread that biofuels policies were a contributor to high international food prices, political support for biofuels diminished around the world. As early as April 2008, at the early peak of the international food price spike, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for a comprehensive review of biofuels policies. The UN’s own special rapporteur on the right to food, Jean Ziegler, even branded biofuels “a crime against humanity” and called for a five-year moratorium. In 2011, a dozen international institutions issued a joint report calling for an end to distortive biofuel policies, especially those without any environmental benefits. Responding to this new international climate of concern, national governments began to back away from aggressive biofuels promotion. In 2008, Brazil cut back on exports of sugar-based ethanol and China capped its use of cereals in biofuel production. Then, in 2011, the U.S. Congress allowed tax credits for ethanol blenders and tariffs on imported ethanol to lapse. Later in 2011, French president Nicolas Sarkozy launched a campaign to discipline biofuels policies within the G20 forum, and in 2012, the EU Commission proposed a policy
change that would reduce the crop-derived percentage of transport fuel from 10 percent in 2020 down to just 5 percent. It was not just a fear of driving up food prices that led to this weakening of government support for biofuels. By 2012 biofuels were also less attractive in the marketplace because petroleum prices had declined even as the crops used as feedstocks to produce biofuels remained expensive. In addition, the urge in the United States to promote biofuels on national security grounds—as a means to reduce dependence on foreign oil— was also undercut by increased production of domestic shale gas, which put the country on a path to greater energy independence, even without biofuels.
Have higher international prices become a permanent feature of food politics? Economists disagree on this question. Most were surprised by the spike in 2007–2008, and then doubly surprised by the persistence of high international prices in 2010–2012. Even the financial crisis and recession in the United States, followed by a debt crisis and recession in Europe, had failed to bring prices back down to the historical trend level. Many concluded that “the era of cheap food is over” and that traditional expectations of falling food prices over the long term would have to be revised. Others recalled an earlier interlude of very high international food prices in the 1970s, one that led to similar pronouncements that the world had entered a new era. In 1971–1974, the price of both wheat and corn on the world market more than doubled, and the price of soybeans rose so high that even the United States briefly imposed an export ban. In November 1974, Time magazine branded this a “world food crisis” and asserted that hunger and famine were ravaging “hundreds of millions of the poorest citizens in at least 40 nations.” This earlier food price spike exhibited a number of characteristics similar to the spike of 2008. Then, just as in 2008, the
The Politics of High Food Prices
price of all commodities, not just food, spiked upward. The macroeconomic explanation on that occasion was inflationary growth linked to lax monetary policies by the Federal Reserve Board in the United States. (In 2008 as well, the Federal Reserve Board cut interest rates to record low levels.) Also, just as in 2008, this earlier spike in international food prices was made worse by trade restrictions. In addition to a temporary U.S. embargo on soybean sales, Argentina, Brazil, Thailand, Myanmar (then Burma), and the European Union (then the Common Market) restricted food exports, stabilizing prices at home but destabilizing international market prices. Also in the 1970s, just as in 2008, food riots broke out in urban neighborhoods. The FAO hosted a global conference in Rome in 1974 to address the crisis, and U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger called for action to ensure that within 10 years no child would have to go to bed hungry. Parallel calls to action were heard at a 2008 FAO conference in Rome. One danger today is that these much-needed new investments in agriculture will be put on the shelf if international food prices fall back down, which is what happened after the 1974 panic subsided. The price spike of 1974 was brought to an end by a slowdown in economic growth worldwide, particularly following a tightening of U.S. monetary policy. By 1981, international food prices had dropped, and an erroneous conclusion was drawn that the world was once again well fed. In fact, then—just as now—the level of international food prices was a poor indicator of actual nutrition outcomes. It was the world recession and debt crisis of the 1980s, not the high international food prices of the 1970s, that caused the greatest human hardship. More people went hungry after the international price of food fell, during the economic recession years that followed. So it was only when the publicly declared food crisis ended in the 1980s that a more acute real food crisis began. Consumption adjustments are made when international food prices spike upward, but most are made in rich countries rather than poor countries because the rich are the heaviest
users of international markets. In international corn markets, for example, the biggest importer is Japan, and the biggest exporter is the United States, so when international corn prices go up these rich countries make the biggest adjustments. Typically, the first adjustment will be to feed less corn to farm animals such as chickens, pigs, and cattle. In wealthy countries, the fact that a great deal of grain is fed to animals actually provides a buffer against price fluctuations for food. In 1974, when corn prices more than doubled, the United States reduced the feeding of grain to livestock by 25 percent, which freed up more grain for direct consumption as food. Then as now, herd sizes were cut, eventually leading to higher meat prices and reduced meat consumption in wealthy societies. With obesity a growing health concern today, higher meat prices may not be an entirely bad outcome.
4 THE POLITICS OF CHRONIC HUNGER AND FAMINE
How do we measure hunger? In our personal lives, hunger is a sensation we feel regularly at mealtime. In the world of politics and public policy, “hunger” is often used as a substitute word for chronic undernutrition, a long-term dietary condition that includes either a protein-energy deficit, a micronutrient deficit, or both. A protein-energy deficit occurs when the intake of calories falls consistently below what the human body burns. A micronutrient deficit occurs when the body does not get enough critical vitamins or minerals, such as iron, zinc, iodine, or vitamin A. The visible indications of a protein-energy deficit include stunting (a low height relative to age), wasting (a low weight relative to height), and underweight (a low weight relative to age). All of these conditions can have serious medical consequences, particularly if they begin in the early months of life before age two. Inadequate early nutrition can lead to reduced cognition plus increased susceptibility to infectious disease and is a major cause of infant mortality. In the poorly fed regions of Africa, children under five die four times as often as in today’s rich countries. Globally, some 3.5 million deaths per
year among young children can be traced to protein-energy undernutrition. When measuring children for size and weight, one complicating factor is that human stature and body size are influenced by genetics as well as nutrition, so small stature does not always reflect ill health; some children can be “small but healthy.” Nonetheless, adverse long-term health effects have been confirmed statistically for populations in which large numbers of individuals are of below-average stature. Diets that provide abundant early access to protein, calcium, and vitamins A and D are known to improve both stature and health. As diets have improved around the world, in fact, people have grown not just more healthy but taller as well. In the United States today, compared to a century ago, the average adult male is three inches taller while enjoying a significantly longer life expectancy.
How many people around the world remain chronically undernourished? The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is tasked with estimating the total number of chronically undernourished people worldwide. These estimates are based on incomplete data, crude assumptions, and a methodology that sometimes changes, so they are often criticized for their imprecision. The FAO generates its estimates country by country, based on rough calculations such as the total availability of food in each country, the demographic structure of the population, the distribution of food access within the population (calculated when possible from nationally representative household surveys), and an assumed level of daily dietary energy (1,800 calories) required to provide adequate nutrition. Using this method, the FAO has estimated most recently that the world in 2010–2012 contained 868 million undernourished people, or about 12 percent of the total world population at that time, which was significantly below the 16 percent level that prevailed in 1990.
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Trends in aggregate numbers are difficult to agree on, but there is little controversy over where most undernourished people can be found. In 2012, the FAO concluded that only 2 percent of hungry people lived in the developed world. The rest lived in the developing world, with 35 percent in South Asia, 27 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa, 7 percent in Southeast Asia, and 6 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean. Parallel estimates made by other organizations such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) agree that South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa are where most of the world’s undernourished people live. All crude estimates of global hunger tend to underestimate micronutrient deficiencies, which are called “hidden hunger” because they are so often unseen. For example, a lack of iron in the diet tends to escape direct observation, yet the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that in the developing world more than 40 percent of pregnant women do not get enough iron, leading to anemia, a risk factor for hemorrhage and death in childbirth. The most reliable method for judging trends in global hunger is to focus not on entire populations but instead on children under five years of age, a cohort that is both highly vulnerable and often easier for clinicians to monitor. Among children, nutrition has steadily been improving around the world. In July 2012, the School of Public Health at Imperial College, London, using the most recent data on children’s height and weight in 141 developing countries, found that the proportion of children classified as moderately to severely underweight had fallen from 30 percent in 1985 to 19 percent in 2011. The prevalence of moderate to severe stunting (low height for age) had declined from 47 percent to 30 percent. Some large countries such as China saw particularly dramatic improvements, and in rapidly growing Brazil the proportion of underweight children had fallen by half in a single decade. In Chile, the proportion of underweight children had fallen essentially zero by
2011. Regionally, about half of the world’s underweight children still lived in South Asia, mostly in India. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the undernourished share of the population actually increased between 1985 and the mid-1990s, but then average height and weight outcomes finally began to improve there as well.
What causes chronic undernutrition? The persistence of chronic undernutrition usually reflects a persistence of deep poverty, and it usually goes away when poverty goes away. Household surveys in Burundi, Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi show that more than 90 percent of those still classified as poor (living on less than $1 a day) were also “hungry,” with daily energy intake below 2,200 calories or a diet lacking in essential diversity. In Bangladesh, 74 percent of those classified as poor are also hungry. In addition to poverty, other risk factors for chronic undernutrition include living in remote rural areas, having fewer years of schooling, and lacking secure access to land. Hunger risks also increase with low social status and political marginalization. Other things being equal, ethnic minorities are more likely to be hungry. For example, in Sri Lanka, Indian Tamils are at a disadvantage. In Central America, stunting is twice as widespread among indigenous children compared to non-indigenous children, and in South Asia, hill tribes and “scheduled castes” suffer greater nutrition deficits than others. In Africa, female-headed households are more at risk. The least well-fed individuals in many societies are orphans and street children. Urban poverty is highly visible to those who visit developing countries, yet it is poverty in the countryside that usually generates the larger share of chronic undernutrition. There are roughly twice as many poor and hungry people in the African countryside compared to urban areas, and in South Asia the ratio is three to one. This greater prevalence of hunger
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in rural areas represents a cruel paradox: rural dwellers usually produce food for a living, yet they are often the first not to get enough for themselves. This is because in South Asia and Africa many rural dwellers are either landless agricultural laborers, working only seasonally and for low pay, or they are impoverished smallholder farmers who may have access to land but lack the tools needed (irrigation, improved seeds, fertilizers) to make their labor productive. They work all day and waste nothing, but the food and money often run out before the next harvest. They are “efficient but poor,” living in what development economists describe as a “poverty trap.”
Does chronic hunger trigger political unrest? Food price spikes can cause social protests, but chronic undernutrition is seldom a trigger for political change. It should be, but it is not. Persistently poor and hungry communities seldom have the means to threaten governments. A preponderance of the hungry will usually be young children and illiterate women located in remote rural settings, typically lacking political knowledge or organization. Often they will be from disadvantaged castes or from marginalized racial and ethnic groups. They may also be governed by non-democratic political regimes in which a single ruling party, a single dynastic family, the military, or a theocracy of religious clerics will hold all the power. In systems such as these, it is usually safe for governments to ignore poor and hungry people in the countryside. As mentioned in Chapter 3, physical hunger and undernutrition were not the cause of the “Arab Spring” street demonstrations that toppled governments in Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt in 2011. In urban Tunisia, where the demonstrations began (over issues of government corruption, unemployment, and personal dignity), chronic undernutrition was hard to find. In all of Tunisia, only 2.9 percent of children under five were underweight, which was less than one-fifth the global
average of 16.2 percent. None of the food protests of 2008 and none of the Arab Spring protests of 2011 broke out in a country that had fallen into the IFPRI “extremely alarming” global hunger index category. If physical hunger were a leading source of political instability, it would be rural rather than urban populations leading the demonstrations, and governments (to ensure their survival) would be investing more in rural agricultural development.
Is chronic undernutrition a problem in the United States? In the United States, the top problem linked to diet is obesity, not undernutrition. This represents a dramatic change from the middle years of the twentieth century, when deep poverty in America generated widespread undernutrition. The United States today still has many communities living in poverty relative to average national wealth and income, but today’s poor are far less likely to under-consume food. One full century ago, when the average consumer income in the United States was only one-fourth as high as today, and when the price of most basic food commodities was twice as high in real terms, getting enough to eat was a serious problem for large parts of the population. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the average American spent 41 percent of personal income on food (compared to just 10 percent today) and low-income Americans often could not afford a healthy diet. During the hard times of the Great Depression in the 1930s, several thousand Americans died each year from diseases such as pellagra (niacin deficiency), beriberi (thiamin deficiency), rickets (vitamin D deficiency), and scurvy (vitamin C deficiency). In 1938, over 20 percent of preschool children in America had rickets, with hundreds dying from this crippling ailment. During the second half of the twentieth century, such deficits were steadily overcome, thanks to a decline in absolute poverty, a continued decline in food commodity prices, plus a new set
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of government-funded anti-hunger interventions. A National School Lunch Act was passed by Congress in 1946, partly in reaction to the poor nutritional status that had been discovered among young men drafted into service early in World War II. Then in the 1960s, following media reports of scandalous poverty and hunger in rural Appalachia, a federal Food Stamp program designed to help low-income families purchase a nutritionally adequate diet was expanded dramatically. Then in the 1970s, a Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (the WIC program) was created to improve the health of low-income pregnant women, new mothers, infants, and young children at nutritional risk. These interventions produced gratifying results, but at a greatly expanded cost to taxpayers in recent years. In 2011, the federal government spent $78 billion on the SNAP (food stamp) program alone, up from about $30 billion in 2007. Partly this reflected the 2008 financial crisis and recession, which pushed more families into poverty, making them eligible for SNAP benefits. In order to be eligible for SNAP, a household must have a low income (e.g., at or below $24,000 a year, for a threeperson family) plus total assets below a certain limit. The average monthly benefit in 2012 was $133 per person, with roughly 45 percent of all recipients being children. SNAP spending has also grown because of a change in the law in 1996 allowing individual states to lower the eligibility requirements and to make more aggressive efforts to enroll eligible residents, which they now do as a way to channel more federal money to their communities. A switch was also made late in the 1990s allowing benefits to be delivered through an EBT card that could be discreetly swiped at checkout, rather than through the redemption of paper coupons, which reduced the public stigma associated with being on food stamps. One result was a significant increase in participation rates. In 2001, only about half of those eligible participated, but by 2011, three-quarters of those eligible were receiving benefits. Roughly 15 percent of Americans are now on SNAP.
Often only a small share of the food purchases made through SNAP are additional to purchases that people would make anyway. Poor households typically use the benefit to replace some existing cash expenditures on food so as to allocate more cash to other things such as housing, clothing, health, and education. In this way the SNAP program functions as an important income supplement and insurance program for the poor. This evolution of the program has made it a target for welfare critics; House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) proposes turning SNAP into a block grant program, a move that would likely lead to cuts. Partly thanks to programs like SNAP and WIC, poverty in America today is far less likely to result in undernutrition. Comparing poor children to middle-class children in America, the average consumption of protein, vitamins, and minerals has become virtually identical for both groups, and average calorie consumption for both groups is now comparably excessive. According to the WHO, the percentage of American children suffering from moderate or severe wasting in 2003–2008 was zero. The percentage who suffered from severe underweight was also zero. As for micronutrient deficits, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found in its most recent report that only 10 percent of the general U.S. population was deficient in vitamin B6, vitamin D, and iron, and less than 1 percent was deficient in folate, vitamin A, and vitamin E. Advocacy groups that campaign against hunger in America seldom celebrate these dramatic achievements, perhaps fearing that a declaration of victory would de-motivate the food assistance interventions that helped to bring it about. Hunger advocacy organizations prefer instead to cite survey data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture that measure not clinical undernutrition but instead a subjective condition of “food insecurity,” based on such factors as worrying at least once during the previous 12 months about running out of food, or perhaps not eating for a whole day because there wasn’t enough money for food. Using these more relaxed standards,
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the USDA reported in 2011 that 14.9 percent of all U.S. households were “food insecure,” and 5.7 percent had “very low food security.” A careful reading of the data reveals, however, that on an average day, only 0.8–1.1 percent of U.S. households experienced very low food security in 2011.
Do developing countries have policy remedies for chronic undernutrition? Many middle-income developing countries also operate nutrition-oriented “safety net” programs for the poor. One of the most successful in recent years has been Brazil, where President Lula da Silva launched a Zero Hunger (Fome Zero) program in January 2003. As of 2006, according to the FAO, this program had reduced the nation’s undernourished population from 17 million to 11.9 million. Achieving this success required a continuing outlay of significant public resources, just as with SNAP in the United States. Brazil’s strategy initially included a $400 million conditional cash transfer (Food Card) program to supplement the income of poor families buying more food (the cash transfers were conditioned on school attendance and health checkups); a $130 million program to purchase food from family farmers (PAA); a $65 million health and nutrition program for the elderly, children, and nursing mothers to address illnesses caused by vitamin and micronutrient deficiencies; an expanded school feeding program; a program to monitor food intake; a food and nutrition education program; and a food supply and distribution program targeting low-income populations in larger cities. In 2009, so-called Family Grants benefiting 12.4 million families replaced Food Cards, at a greatly expanded annual cost to the state of $6.5 billion. These Family Grants in 2009 represented 2 percent of Brazil’s federal budget but only 0.4 percent of GDP. Less prosperous countries are not able to afford such programs, and countries with less administrative capacity are not able to implement them properly.
Brazil’s programs have paid off in terms of improved health and nutrition outcomes. In the city of Guaribas, the Food Card program helped to end infant deaths attributable to malnutrition and to expand vaccine coverage from 9 to 96 percent and prenatal care from 10 to 80 percent. The Fome Zero program’s biggest challenge has always been striking a balance between doing enough to reach all of the poor, versus doing so much as to discourage private investments in the delivery of market-based nutrition and health services. Local Management Committees help ensure appropriate targeting of public assistance by scrutinizing local Cadastro Unico (Unified Registers) of those in extreme poverty. Governments elsewhere in the developing world have implemented food subsidy programs that are less well administered and less well targeted. One approach is to set up a parallel food supply system for the poor in which citizens holding ration cards can go to “fair price shops” to purchase cheap bread or flour. India has operated such a system for decades, but management is poor and waste and corruption are rampant. Another approach is to flood urban markets with government-purchased grain, a method often used to excess in Egypt. This approach is costly to the government, it makes food artificially cheap for all urban dwellers, not just the poor, and it often fails to reach rural areas where needs are greatest. Food safety net programs are nominally intended to improve nutrition, but their deeper motivation is also to deliver benefits to politically powerful urban groups, such as civil servants, policemen, and labor unions. Micronutrient deficits can also be addressed by policy interventions in the developing world, often through the “fortification” of wheat flour with iron, folic acid, or vitamin B, usually at centralized industrial milling facilities. This is a relatively inexpensive process (it adds only a tiny fraction of a penny to the cost of a loaf of bread) and effective for those who get the fortified flour, but once again it can exclude the rural economy, where milling is small scale and localized.
The Politics of Chronic Hunger
Supporting broadly based income growth has always been the best long-run approach for reducing chronic undernutrition in developing countries. In the poorest agricultural societies, in Asia and Africa, this will require in the first instance an increase in the productivity of small farmers. So long as agricultural labor earns only about $1 a day, the vast majority of rural citizens who work as farmers will remain poor and hence vulnerable to chronic undernutrition. According to the World Bank, rural poverty and hunger worsened in Sub-Saharan Africa in the 1980s and 1990s largely because the average annual value added of farm labor was low and falling (from $418 in 1980, to just $379 by 1997). Meanwhile, hunger was in decline in East Asia because average value added per farm worker was increasing sharply, up by 50 percent in Thailand and up by 100 percent in China. Increasing the productivity of farm labor typically requires the introduction of new technologies such as improved seeds, fertilizers, and machinery. It also requires government investment in basic rural public goods such as roads and electricity. Because governments in Africa have made few such investments, farm productivity remains low and large numbers remain poor and hungry.
What is the difference between undernutrition and famine? A famine takes place when large numbers of people die quickly in a specific location because they have not had enough food to eat. Some die from actual starvation—acute wasting— while others die from diseases that attack people who are in a weakened state. The United Nations officially declares a famine based on three criteria: at least 20 percent of households in an area must face extreme food shortages and a limited ability to cope; the acute malnutrition rate must exceed 30 percent; and the death rate must exceed two persons per day per 10,000 people in the population. While low food intake still afflicts hundreds of
millions of poor people in the developing world, actual famines have fortunately become rare.
When have famines taken place? Famine is as old as recorded history. In the book of Revelation, famine is represented as one of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. Europe suffered a great famine in 1315–1317 that killed millions. In France during the Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453), a combination of warfare, crop failures, and epidemics reduced the population by two-thirds. In Ireland in 1845–1849, famine triggered by a recurring potato blight killed 1 million people outright and drove another million from the country as refugees. In India, there were 14 famines between the eleventh and seventeenth centuries, and India’s great famine of 1876–1878 killed 6 to 10 million people. By the twentieth century, famine had largely disappeared from western Europe, but it continued to appear in Asia, Africa, and also in eastern Europe. In the Soviet Union under Lenin and Stalin, the Ukraine experienced one famine in 1921–1922, then a more severe one in 1932–1933. During World War II, the city of Leningrad suffered a famine that killed roughly 1 million people. In Asia, a famine visited Bengal in 1943 and killed 1.5 to 3 million people. Starvation devastated China in 1958–1961, during Mao Zedong’s disastrous Great Leap Forward, killing as many as 30 million people, the single largest famine of all time. A famine began in North Korea in 1996, and to a lesser extent it may continue to the present day, with a death toll impossible for outsiders to estimate, given the closed nature of that state. In Africa, famine struck in the Sahel and in Ethiopia in the early 1970s and then again in Ethiopia and Sudan in the 1980s. Most recently, a famine was formally declared in southern Somalia in 2011.
What causes famines? Famines have diverse causes. In some instances, a natural event is the trigger, such as the drought in the African Sahel
The Politics of Chronic Hunger
in the early 1970s that devastated both grain production and the forage needed for animals. In other cases (Ireland in 1845), a crop disease—in this case, a potato blight—can wipe out staple food production. In still other cases, such as Bangladesh in 1974, it can be rain-induced flooding, which disrupts agricultural production and drives food prices in the market beyond the reach of the poor. In Ethiopia, Sudan, and Mozambique in the 1980s, adverse impacts from drought were compounded by violent internal conflict. In the Russian city of Leningrad in 1941, famine broke out when a surrounding German army laid siege. Ideology also can cause famine. In Ukraine in 1932–1933, Stalin took land and food away from private farmers because he viewed them as “capitalist” enemies of the working class. There was no drought, no blight, no flood, and no war—just a coercive government takeover intended to “socialize” the farming sector. Peasants who resisted were imprisoned or shot. As production fell, forcible state procurements of grain continued, and at least 6 million people starved—in one of the richest grain-growing regions of the world. More than ideological blindness may have been at work; historian Robert Conquest, author of Harvest of Sorrow, has depicted these events as a “terror famine,” an intentional campaign to starve Ukrainians suspected of political disloyalty to Moscow. The famine in China in 1959–1961 was also driven by ideology—in this case, a 1958 decision by Mao Zedong to organize food production (and everything else) according to a system of people’s communes. Ownership of farmland and control over grain harvests were both taken away, which eliminated any incentive for farmers to be productive. Peasant farmers also had their labor burdened by a new requirement that they begin producing steel out of scrap metal in “backyard furnaces.” When grain production collapsed in 1959, requirements by local Communist Party cadres to deliver grain to the state to feed the urban workforce were nonetheless enforced, and even increased. This left the peasants with nothing for themselves,
and 15 to 30 million starved. In 1962, Mao was finally forced to abandon most of the policies that were causing the famine. Despite this wide variety of famine causes, some scholars have tried to offer generalized explanations. The most prominent modern famine scholar is Amartya Sen, a Bengali economist and philosopher who won a Nobel Prize in 1998 for his contribution to welfare economics. Sen, who witnessed the famine in Bengal in 1943 as a young boy, wrote an important book in 1981 (Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation) challenging the conventional belief that famines are caused by “food availability declines.” Sen had found that during the 1943 Bengal famine, locally available food supplies did not decline; the deprivation resulted instead from a surge in wartime spending by Great Britain (which had colonized Bengal and was then fighting Japan), triggering a pattern of panic buying and hoarding that drove the price of food out of the reach of the poor. As many as 3 million died, even though the total quantity of food available had never declined. Sen explains a 1974 Bangladesh famine in much the same way. Floods disrupted agricultural labor, which in turn cut the income of landless farmworkers. The floods also created an expectation of rice shortages, which caused hoarding and panic buying, finally driving prices out of the reach of the poor. Vulnerable groups that depended on a particular relationship between the market value of their own labor and the market price of rice found that their exchange entitlement (Sen’s terminology) to food had been taken away. Those with a more direct entitlement to food—for example, those owning the land that produced the food—did not starve. Sen’s warnings of famine dangers linked to unregulated markets remain popular, yet his own later work shifted the emphasis to a concern regarding undemocratic political systems. Sen observed that famines did not tend to occur in democratic political systems, where leaders know they will be punished in the next election if they allow their own people to starve. Democratic India avoided famine in 1965 and
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1966, despite two consecutive years of failing monsoon rains, because the leadership turned to the outside world for millions of tons of emergency food aid and expanded its public food distribution systems. Non-democratic China provided no such response when the Great Leap failed, and it even covered up its famine from the outside world. At the extreme, states lacking both free elections and free markets—such as China under Mao, or North Korea today—will be the most famine-prone.
How do famines end? Famines can end for nearly as many different reasons as they begin. In the case of Ireland, famine deaths declined in part because many fled the country (including a large emigration to the United States) and also because so many potential victims had already died. In addition, Britain finally responded by sending food and funds to help Ireland, so by 1849–1850, public workhouses were able to care for those left destitute by the continuing crop failures. In the case of Ukraine in 1933, roughly 25 percent of the population eventually perished, including nearly all of the propertied farmers who had resisted the move toward socialized agriculture. Once private agriculture had been destroyed and Stalin’s political objectives achieved, he reduced mandatory state procurements from the region and allowed food distribution to resume, so the famine subsided. In the case of the Bengal famine of 1943, the crisis ended when the government in London finally accepted the need to import 1 million tons of grain to Bengal, to discourage hoarding and bring food prices back down to a level the poor could afford. In the case of Mao’s famine in China, the abandonment of the Great Leap policies, a decision to permit grain imports, and a reduction in mandatory state procurements were all key to ending the starvation. In the case of the African Sahel, surviving pastoralist populations first relocated southward to less drought-prone regions, and then, fortunately, the cyclical rains improved. In the case
of Ethiopia, Sudan, and Mozambique in the 1980s, famines that were largely triggered by drought and civil conflict ended when the rains returned or the civil conflicts diminished.
What has been the most successful international response to famine? The best international response to famine is to deliver food and medical aid, but not too soon and not for too long. If international food aid is distributed too soon at feeding stations in rural market towns after a drought, some people who are not yet starving will be tempted to leave their farms and relocate to these feeding stations in search of free food, water, and medicine. If they stay, these farmers will then be away from their fields when the rains return the next season and will not be in a position to plant a new crop. They will become permanently dependent on food aid. Dislocations of this kind need to be avoided as long as food-stressed populations are still “coping.” Fortunately, a wide range of coping strategies are usually available in impoverished countries when temporary food shortages loom, including eating fewer meals every day, switching to less desirable “famine foods” (including wild foods that can be foraged or hunted in the bush), and selling off some animals or some nonessential household assets, such as jewelry, to raise the money needed to purchase food. Only when people run out of such options and begin taking more drastic steps, such as selling off essential farm implements, should they be encouraged to relocate to feeding camps, and even then they should be kept in this dependent condition only as long as necessary. Once the rains return or once the violent conflict ends, internally displaced people should return to their farming communities. This can be encouraged by replacing the food aid with a one-time distribution of farm implements, animals, and cash—the things that people will need to return to a productive livelihood.
The Politics of Chronic Hunger
Can famine be prevented? Famines are now prevented on a regular basis. In Africa today, even large-scale drought does not have to result in famine. After a series of traumatizing emergencies in the 1970s and 1980s, the international community fortunately set in place for Africa a famine early warning system (FEWS) based on regular assessments of local rainfall patterns and market prices to ensure a more effective response to future drought emergencies. This system, operated by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), proved effective in giving advance warning of food aid needs when drought struck southern Africa in 1991–1992. In Malawi, Namibia, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe, cereal production fell 60–70 percent, and throughout the region, 17–20 million people were placed at starvation risk. Yet, thanks to an effective food aid response from the UN World Food Programme (WFP) working in cooperation with local governments and humanitarian relief non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the only famine deaths reported were in Mozambique, where aid was impossible to deliver because of an ongoing civil war. The new international capacity to prevent famine in Africa was then successfully tested a second time in southern Africa in 2001–2002, when drought returned and 15 million people were put at starvation risk. Once again, the international food aid response was timely, and essentially, no famine deaths occurred. This new international famine-prevention capacity can falter, however, in countries torn by internal conflict. In 2011 the Horn of Africa experienced the worst recorded drought in 60 years, and millions were placed at risk in Ethiopia, Kenya, Djibouti, and Somalia. The international community responded with a vigorous famine prevention operation, operated once again by the World Food Programme. Famine was avoided everywhere except southern Somalia, where 50,000 to 100,000 people died. Famine deaths occurred because southern
Somalia was under the control of al Shabaab, an armed jihadist militia group loyal to al Qaeda that refused to let food aid come in. In the modern era, we can conclude, natural disasters alone do not cause famine. When famines occur, it is because armed groups (or national governments, in the case of North Korea) intentionally block famine relief.
5 FOOD AID AND AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE
What is international food aid? Food aid is the international shipment of food through “concessional” channels, as a gift, rather than through commercial channels, as a sale. The food can be given by a donor government to a recipient government, by a donor government to a non-governmental organization (NGO) working inside the recipient country, or through a multilateral organization such as the World Food Programme (WFP) of the United Nations. The food can be sourced from a government-owned surplus supply, or purchased in the home market of the donor country, purchased from a local market in the recipient country, or purchased in a third-country market close to the recipient country. The purpose of the food aid can be to address a temporary famine emergency, to cushion higher food prices (as during the 2008 world food crisis), to feed a dependent refugee population, or to support local work or education activities (through “food for work” programs, or school lunch programs). It can generate cash income for assistance organizations through sales into a local market (called monetization), it can dispose of a surplus, and in some cases it can be used to reward recipient governments for taking foreign policy actions
pleasing to the donor government. Because there are so many ways to give food aid and so many different reasons for giving it, generalizations about this policy instrument are almost always dangerous. There is one exception: food aid today can safely be described as less important to the world food system than it was in the past. As a share of all cross-border food shipments, food aid is no longer of great significance. In the early 1970s, international food aid still made up about 10 percent of all cross-border food flows, but food aid declined in relative importance as commercial trade expanded, and now it makes up only about 3 percent of total cross-border food flows. Food aid does, however, remain a significant share of total food imports for some individual recipient countries.
Which countries get food aid? The answer to this question has changed over time. In the early 1950s, the most important recipients of international food aid were in Europe and East Asia. Most of the food came from the United States to support reconstruction in these regions following the damage of World War II, for example through the Marshall Plan. By the 1960s, the direction of most food aid had shifted toward South Asia, especially India. Then, in the 1970s and 1980s, a great deal of American food aid went first to Vietnam and then to the Middle East, largely in service of foreign policy objectives. Finally, by the 1990s, Sub-Saharan Africa had emerged as the target destination of most food aid. According to one United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report in the 1990s, concessional international food aid provided more than 40 percent of total cereal imports for more than 40 recipient countries, and most of those countries were in Africa. Roughly 60 percent of all international food aid now goes to Sub-Saharan Africa. Food aid today moves less through bilateral governmentto-government channels and more through the UN World
Food Programme. This change took place after an important UN World Food Conference in 1974, partly in response to the international food price crisis of that decade. By 2000, roughly 38 percent of all global food aid was delivered by the WFP, and by 2009, 64 percent of food aid was delivered through such multilateral channels. National governments in rich countries still fund nearly all food aid, but more than 90 percent of this aid is now distributed either by the WFP or by NGOs, rather than from government to government. The enlarged role of the WFP, a politically neutral UN agency, has helped to diminish the role of crude favoritism based on foreign policy calculations in determining who gets aid and who does not. Unfortunately, this has made it easier for some recipient countries to grow comfortable depending on food aid. In the 1960s, when most food aid came straight from the U.S. government, often with diplomatic and foreign policy strings attached, recipient countries such as India became uncomfortable with the relationship and, partly to escape a dependence on food aid, made larger investments in their own agricultural production. Governments in Africa today that depend on food aid have shown less urgency in reducing their dependence because the food comes to them from the United Nations without any political conditions.
Do rich countries give food aid to dispose of their surplus production? This was true for the United States in the 1950s, when farm subsidy policies had generated a surplus quantity of wheat, which the government had to buy from farmers. One way to get this surplus out of government storage bins was international food aid. Under Public Law 480, enacted in 1954, also known as the Food for Peace program, government-owned surplus commodities could be shipped directly to recipient governments in the developing world. To respect the sensitivities of recipient countries, as well as to avoid complaints
of unfair trade from export competitors, a “payment” for the food was accepted in the form of nonconvertible local currency that could only be spent by the U.S. embassy inside the local economy. Long-term and low-interest credit terms were also allowed, so the food was essentially given away free. The P.L. 480 program played a significant role in helping the U.S. government dispose of its grain surplus at a time when commercial export markets were weak. By 1960, fully 70 percent of U.S. wheat exports were moving abroad as concessional food aid rather than commercial sales. Later in the 1960s, however, the United States began supporting domestic farm income with cash payments rather than through purchases of grain, so the amount of surplus food owned by the government dwindled. This might have brought an end to the food aid program, but by then it had become a convenient tool in the conduct of American foreign policy, so P.L. 480 did not disappear. Government-owned grain surpluses were gone by the 1970s, but Congress authorized the continuation of the food aid program based on purchases of food in the marketplace, as long as it was purchased in the United States and then shipped abroad in U.S. vessels.
Why are America’s food aid policies so difficult to change? America’s method of giving food aid has changed little since the 1970s. To the present day, most of the food is purchased in the United States, and most of it is shipped in U.S. vessels. It would cost taxpayers less to purchase the food closer to the site of the emergency, and every other donor country, including the European countries, Japan, and now even Canada, has moved toward local purchase as the best practice for food aid, but rules set by Congress have prevented the United States from doing the same. Changing these rules will not be easy. In 2006 and 2007, President George W. Bush attempted to allocate a small percentage of the food aid budget for procurements abroad, but
Congress said no. Former president Bill Clinton said that it was to Bush’s “everlasting credit” that he had at least challenged Congress on local purchase. In 2012, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) revised its rules to allow local purchase for assistance goods other than food, but the rules for food aid were made by Congress, not the USAID administrator. In 2013, when President Barack Obama called once again for a move to allow locally purchased food aid, more than 60 domestic organizations, led by farm lobby and maritime lobby groups, signed a letter to Congress objecting to such a change. A second distinctive trait of United States food aid policy is called “cargo preference,” which is a legal requirement that most food aid be shipped in U.S.-flag vessels, which are 70 to 80 percent more costly per ton than foreign-flag carriers. The Department of Defense joins the shipping lobby in favoring this provision. This is because it allegedly helps keep an American merchant fleet in operation to provide secure ocean transport in the event of a future military conflict. In 2012, Congress reduced this “cargo preference” requirement from 75 percent to 50 percent, but the maritime lobby has vowed to fight this reform. Because foreign purchase is not allowed and because so much shipment on U.S.-flag vessels is required, roughly 65 percent of America’s food aid spending is eaten up by administrative and transport costs. Another dubious feature of American food aid is the frequent practice of selling the food into local markets rather than targeting deliveries to needy recipients. Over one recent three-year period, more than $500 million worth of American food aid was “monetized” in this fashion. This practice lowers local food costs for the well-to-do as well as for the poor and hungry, and by undercutting market prices it can disadvantage local farmers, thus prolonging dependence on food aid. This practice persists because some of the American NGOs handling the food rely on the monetary proceeds from sales to fund their other local development projects. A number of
leading American NGOs, including CARE, Oxfam, Catholic Relief Services, and Save the Children, have signed a declaration, along with British, French, and Canadian aid groups, calling this practice into question. If Congress were to end monetization, allow food purchases to be made outside the United States, and eliminate cargo preference, each dollar spent through P.L. 480 would deliver significantly more food to needy recipients. Realistically, however, if these reforms were made, Congress would probably authorize many fewer dollars for the program. America’s food aid program is the largest in the world (50 percent of all food aid globally comes from the United States) in part because Congress knows that there are benefits for domestic farmers, the shipping industry, American NGOs, and even national defense.
Does food aid create dependence or hurt farmers in recipient countries? In the early days of food aid in the 1950s and 1960s, when large shipments of surplus grain were first sent to the developing world as food aid, critics warned that a costly and dangerous dependence might result. Local consumers would become hooked on cheap food delivered from abroad, and local farmers would go out of business due to depressed food prices in the marketplace. Some even suspected that this was the American farm lobby’s intent. Once the recipients had been lured into a dependence on food aid, the aid would be taken away and they would be forced to graduate to the status of paying customers. Agricultural lobby groups in the United States have often hoped that food aid would work in this manner as commercial export promotion, but it seldom has. America’s largest food aid shipments in the past went to countries like Peru, Haiti, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Jordan, Egypt, and the Philippines, and none of these later became a leading commercial market
for U.S. agricultural sales. By some estimates, more than half of all food aid actually displaces purchased shipments, meaning it destroys more commercial sales in the short run than it ever creates in the long run. Some of the commercial sales displaced will be from competing exporters, so food aid is also a contentious issue in international trade. Where commercial sales do increase in the long run, it is usually a result of income growth in the recipient country leading to more food demand, implying that foreign investment and development assistance are actually far better tools for commercial export promotion than food aid. Even as a subsidy to domestic farmers, food aid has limited benefit today because food aid shipments are now so small relative to commercial agricultural exports and total sales. In 2012, the USDA spent roughly $2 billion purchasing and shipping food aid. By comparison, total commercial agricultural exports from the United States were valued at $135 billion and total cash sales by farms at $385 billion. For some individual commodity groups such as wheat or rice growers, food aid shipments still make up a valued share of total sales, but for American agriculture as a whole the importance is now small. There are some examples of food aid altering the behavior of consumers and food producers in recipient countries. Large deliveries of wheat and rice into West Africa in the 1970s accelerated local shifts in consumer demand away from sorghum and millet toward breads made from wheat. Large deliveries of maize as food aid to the Horn of Africa likewise encouraged recipients, many of them pastoralists, to shift their diet from animal products to grains. In most recipient countries, however, the quantity of food aid delivered has not been large enough inside the local market to trigger a significant shift in consumer behavior. Even in some of the poorest recipient countries, such as Ethiopia, only about one in ten local recipients ever receives enough food aid (in value terms) to equal more than one-quarter of individual income. Displaced communities who get food aid at refugee camps can develop a
dangerous dependence on the handouts, but entire national populations do not. As for local farmers, when unusually large quantities of food aid are delivered in an untargeted manner at the wrong time—for example, corresponding with a local harvest—damage can be done. Yet many poor local farmers are themselves purchasers of food during much of the year, so food aid deliveries that are well timed help them by keeping the local price of food down during the off season, when they have nothing to sell anyway. Still, there are instances when poorly timed or poorly targeted food aid did lead to local production disincentives, for example the large shipments of food aid that went to Russia in the 1990s when the cold war ended, or large shipments to Ethiopia in 1999–2000 that arrived at the wrong time and collapsed local sorghum prices. Such problems are better contained today because more food aid is delivered for humanitarian purposes rather than as crude surplus disposal, and it more often moves through multilateral humanitarian agencies or NGOs that incorporate targeting and price awareness into their programs.
Do governments seek coercive power from food aid? Governments are sometimes tempted to seek a coercive advantage by manipulating—or threatening to manipulate—the volume and timing of food aid shipments. On one noted occasion in 1965–1968, President Lyndon Johnson gave in to this temptation in his dealings with India by conditioning the continued delivery of food aid on changes that he wanted to see in Indian agricultural policy, as well as reduced Indian criticism of Johnson’s war policies in Vietnam. India had suffered two sequential harvest failures in 1965 and 1966 and was heavily dependent on deliveries of food aid wheat from the United States. It did agree to some of the agricultural policy changes that Johnson wanted, most of which were good for India in the end, but it was deeply resentful of the coercion and refused to
end criticism of American policies in Vietnam. The final political outcome was intensified Indian hostility toward the United States, not compliant subservience. Efforts to gain diplomatic leverage by manipulating commercial food exports are even more prone to fail. In 1980 President Jimmy Carter attempted to punish the Soviet Union for its invasion of Afghanistan with a partial embargo on U.S. commercial grain exports, mostly wheat and corn. Carter’s hope was that reduced imports would oblige the Soviets to cut back on the feeding of grain to cattle and pigs, resulting in meat shortages that might then reduce internal support for the Communist regime. The U.S. embargo failed when other grain-exporting countries—particularly Argentina, Australia, and Canada—agreed to sell more to the Soviets to make up for the U.S. sales being blocked. The Soviets, by offering only small price premiums to these other suppliers, were able to import roughly the same total quantity of grain during the U.S. embargo as they had imported before the embargo. They meanwhile made the most of the embargo by blaming some meat shortages (which they were going to experience anyway) on Jimmy Carter. Food is hard to withhold for coercive purposes in part because most governments do not want to be blamed for imposing humanitarian hardships on foreign populations. In recent negotiations with North Korea over food aid, the United States has paradoxically found itself at a disadvantage because any withdrawal of food aid could be depicted by the North as an American effort to use starvation as a tool of foreign policy, an accusation that the United States wishes to avoid.
How is agricultural development assistance different from food aid? Sending free food to poor countries is a valuable and lifesaving step in short-run circumstances, but the recipient countries would do better in the long run to develop the potential of their own farmers to supply food. Most farmers in poor countries are
producing far below their potential. For example, according to the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), average cereal yields in Africa are only about 1 ton per hectare, compared to 2.5 tons in South Asia and 4.5 tons in East Asia. If governments in Africa gave farmers access to better technologies (seeds, fertilizers, machinery), better training through schooling and extension services, and better rural infrastructures to provide roads, water, and electrical power, the region’s dependence on food aid could quickly be ended. Agricultural development assistance is a form of “foreign aid” intended to help poor countries bring these vital assets to their own farmers. Agricultural development assistance is difficult for politicians in rich countries to support because it does not produce instantly visible benefits. Food aid supporters, by contrast, can provide photographs of refugee children whose lives are being saved by food deliveries. Most agricultural development programs, such as investments in agricultural research or agricultural education, do not deliver their full pay off for a decade or more, and even then the benefit will be difficult to document. Economists using the best measurement techniques available have nonetheless found large long-term gains from agricultural development investments. In the developing world as a whole, the International Food Policy Research Institute in 2000 calculated a median rate of return of 48 percent for investments in agricultural research and a 63 percent return for investments in extension. Even in difficult settings such as Africa the returns are high. The World Bank’s World Development Report 2008 documented rates of return on agricultural research in Africa that averaged 35 percent per year, accompanied by significant reductions in poverty. The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) has estimated 50 percent average rates of return when the spending goes through Africa’s own national agricultural research systems (NARS). Investments in rural infrastructure also have large payoffs in the long run. In India, according to calculations done by IFPRI,
investments in rural roads were even more powerful than investments in agricultural research for the purpose of lifting people out of poverty. Similar impacts have been measured in Africa. One IFPRI study in 2004 found that spending on rural feeder roads in Uganda had better than a 7 to 1 ratio of benefits (in terms of agricultural growth and rural poverty reduction) relative to costs. Supporters of agricultural development assistance believe that rich countries should use their foreign assistance programs to help poor countries make investments of this kind in rural infrastructure and agricultural research.
How much international assistance do rich countries provide for agricultural development? In 2008–2009, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris calculated that the world’s rich countries, in combination, provided $9 billion in annual assistance to agriculture, two-thirds of that through bilateral channels, and one-third through multilateral channels such as the World Bank, the European Union (EU), and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). The largest share of this assistance went to Sub-Saharan Africa, and the secondlargest share to South Asia. One-quarter of the aid went for direct efforts to boost agricultural production, about one-fifth went to support changes in agricultural policies, and smaller amounts went for agricultural education and research, rural development, and agricultural water resources. The international food price spike of 2008 then stimulated an overdue effort by rich countries to increase these outlays. It was noticed that, in real terms, international assistance to agriculture in 2009 was actually 30 percent lower than it had been in the mid-1980s. A new political effort was made by development assistance advocates to return spending to the earlier levels, and these efforts paid off at a G8 meeting in L’Aquila, Italy, in July 2009, when President Barack Obama persuaded rich country leaders to collectively pledge $22 billion for
agricultural development over the next three years, of which $6 billion was to be new money. The president leveraged his argument by making a highly personal reference to the impoverished conditions still experienced by his own extended family living in the agricultural countryside in Kenya. Many donor countries fell short of fulfilling this 2009 pledge. As the three-year period was coming to a close, a respected humanitarian NGO named the One Campaign reported that only about half of the pledged money had been disbursed or firmly committed. Even so, agricultural development assistance spending did increase markedly following the price spike of 2008. In the United States, for example, annual congressional funding for bilateral and multilateral agricultural development assistance increased from $245 million in fiscal year 2008, up to $639 million in fiscal year 2009, and then all the way up to $1.3 billion by fiscal year 2012.
Which agencies operate United States agricultural development assistance? Most United States assistance programs for agricultural development are planned by officials from USAID working in coordination with individual recipient country governments. They are then implemented by non-governmental organizations from the United States, such as CARE or ACDI/VOCA. The activities funded in this manner include technical support and training for local farmer organizations, support for local seed and fertilizer dealers, and assistance in the marketing and processing of agricultural goods. USAID has significantly increased its own in-house capacity to design agricultural projects since the Obama administration launched a “Feed the Future” initiative in 2010, but most of the work on the ground continues to be outsourced to private contractors. The other federal government agency that designs and funds significant agricultural development assistance programs is the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC),
created by the Bush administration in 2004 to provide an alternative to the USAID approach. The MCC operates by making bilateral five-year grants based on detailed “compacts” negotiated with recipient governments, outlining the investments that will be made by the receiving government through its own locally established Millennium Development Authority (MiDA). Congress appropriates the full value of the compact before the agreement is signed, then the funds are disbursed by the MCC in installments. In the agricultural area, the MCC has specialized in funding infrastructure investments, such as an irrigation project in drought-prone Mali and rural road building in northern Ghana. Originally envisioned as a $5-billion-per-year program, the MCC has never been given adequate resources. Congress was not comfortable appropriating foreign assistance money five years in advance, and many Democrats have not been comfortable supporting what is still seen as a Republican innovation in assistance administration. The United States also supports agricultural development through appropriations for the multilateral International Development Association (IDA) within the World Bank, plus a new Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP), a pooled fund also managed by the World Bank. The GAFSP was created following a 2009 G20 Summit meeting, as yet another response to the 2008 food price spike. Unfortunately, international support for GAFSP proved weak, and even the United States faltered in supporting this fund, partly because the 2010 midterm elections put the House of Representatives into the hands of spending-conscious Republicans influenced by the Tea Party movement. In 2012, these same Republicans attacked USAID’s assistance programs as well, threatening the durability of President Obama’s Feed the Future initiative.
Who benefits from agricultural development assistance? The beneficiaries include small as well as large farmers. In Ethiopia, for example, USAID supports a Pastoralist Livelihoods
Initiative that organizes women into groups to get credits that they can use either to buy sheep and goats or to diversify into horticulture production, and also a Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) that funds local community-designed projects to build or repair rural roads, dig wells, plant tree seedlings, or construct school classrooms. United States agricultural development assistance in Ethiopia increased from only $7 million a year in 2007 to $85 million in 2012. By one calculation, the benefits included an additional month of food security for the poor, measured in terms of children’s meals consumed during the lean season. When a record drought struck the Horn of Africa in 2011, Ethiopia avoided famine and the number of citizens needing emergency food relief was only half as great as during an earlier drought in 2002–2003. Increased agricultural development assistance to Bangladesh has also brought tangible benefits. Annual United States assistance to Bangladesh grew from only $6 million in 2009 to $77 million by 2012. These funds made possible a number of initiatives, such as expanded use of a “fertilizer deep placement” technique that allows rice farmers to increase yields by 25 percent while reducing fertilizer use and runoff by 40 percent. The number of rural households benefiting directly from United States agricultural development programs in Bangladesh increased from 119,000 in 2008 to 2,700,000 by 2012. Despite such demonstrated benefits, political support for agricultural development assistance remains fragile. The 2008 “world food crisis” triggered an overdue revival of resource commitments for these projects, but as the memory of that crisis fades, support for spending in this area could fade as well. In 2012, with Congress threatening cuts to the USAID budget, the Obama administration began looking for a backup approach. It turned to private food and agribusiness companies and launched what it called a New Alliance on Food Security and Nutrition, based on pledges of corporate support for African agriculture. Under this New Alliance, a total of 45 different multinational and African companies committed
to make more than $3 billion worth of investments in Africa, spanning every link in the agricultural value chain including irrigation, crop protection, and financing. Substituting private investment for public sector assistance is a worthy long-term goal for Africa, but until adequate public investments are made in rural roads, power, and farming research, the incentives for private firms to do enough will remain weak.
6 THE GREEN REVOLUTION CONTROVERSY
What was the green revolution? The original green revolution, which took place in the 1960s and 1970s, was an introduction of newly developed wheat and rice seeds into Latin America and into the irrigated farming lands of South Asia and Southeast Asia. These new seed varieties had been developed by plant breeders working in Mexico and the Philippines with support from the non-profit Rockefeller Foundation. The new seeds were capable of producing much higher yields per hectare if grown with adequate applications of water and fertilizer. By cross-breeding different seed varieties from all over the world, the plant scientists had managed to incorporate dwarfing genes which produced short rice and wheat plants that devoted more of their energy to producing grain, and less to straw or leaf material. Short, stiff straws also helped to hold a heavier weight of grain. Farmers in India began planting the new wheat varieties in 1964, and by 1970 production had nearly doubled. The seeds were introduced not by private companies, but instead by not-for-profit organizations such as the Rockefeller and Ford foundations, with support from donor agencies such as the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) plus
The Green Revolution Controversy
the government of India itself, which was devoting more than 20 percent of its budget to agricultural development by the early 1970s. Between 1964 and 2008, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), average wheat yields per hectare in India increased fourfold. New rice seeds gave an equally spectacular performance. In India, rice production in the states of Punjab and Haryana doubled between 1971 and 1976. In Asia overall, rice output had been increasing at only a 2.1 percent annual rate during the two decades before the new varieties were introduced in 1965, but output then grew for the next two decades at a much higher 2.9 percent rate. This significant boost in Asia’s capacity to produce basic grains arrived at a critical moment when population growth was at its peak, and supporters of the new seeds credit them with saving the region from what would otherwise have been a dangerous food crisis. In 1970, the American scientist who did the most to develop and promote the new wheat varieties, Norman Borlaug, was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize. Green revolution seed improvements did not end with wheat and rice. Significantly improved varieties of sorghum, millet, barley, and cassava had been developed by the 1980s. Overall, more than 8,000 new seed varieties were introduced for at least 11 different crops. Robert Evenson, an economist at Yale University, calculated in 2003 that if these modern varieties had not been introduced after 1965, annual crop production in the developing world in the year 2000 would have been 16–19 percent lower than it actually was, and world food and feed prices would have been 35–65 percent higher.
Why is the green revolution controversial? Despite offering dramatic production gains, the new seeds of the green revolution were surrounded by political controversy from the start. Some critics feared that they would lead to greater income inequality if only larger farmers were able to adopt them. Others worried that they would make farmers too
dependent on the purchase of expensive inputs such as fertilizer. Still others feared environmental damage from excessive fertilizer applications, excessive pumping of groundwater for irrigation, or the excessive spraying of pesticides. The new seeds were also criticized on the grounds that they could reduce biodiversity if vast monocultures of newly introduced green revolution varieties replaced diverse plantings of traditional crop varieties. At an extreme, some critics even argued that the green revolution seeds had become a source of violent conflict in India, between Hindus and Muslims in the Punjab. In Central America, others blamed green revolution farming for rural dispossession and revolutionary violence. The response of most farmers to the green revolution was to adopt the new seeds as quickly as possible, as a pathway to increased productivity and higher income. The most vocal critics of the green revolution were not farmers, but instead activists and political leaders who expressed faith in traditional practices, were suspicious of private seed and fertilizer companies, and feared that coaxing higher yields from the land would prove environmentally damaging and unsustainable. The most outspoken green revolution critics, including Indian activist Vandana Shiva, called for farmers to retreat from the modern global marketplace and return to the use of seed varieties based on the “indigenous knowledge” of local farming communities. These different views toward the original green revolution regularly re-emerge in contemporary political debates about food and farming. Supporters of the original green revolution are eager now to spread the use of improved seeds, fertilizers, and irrigation to regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa. The original green revolution had little impact in Africa, due to a lack of road and water infrastructure and also because wheat and rice were not leading food staples in Africa. To overcome these barriers, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation formed a partnership in 2006 called an “Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa,” or AGRA. Green
The Green Revolution Controversy
revolution critics responded immediately that such a project would be a serious mistake. Peter Rosset, speaking for a nongovernmental organization in the United States named Food First, warned that the most likely result of this new initiative would be “higher profits for the seed and fertilizer industries, negligible impacts on total food production and a worsening exclusion and marginalization in the countryside.” One explanation for these dramatically divergent views of the green revolution is the differing impact that the new seeds had in Asia versus Latin America. In Asia the benefits of the new seed varieties were widely shared by the poor, while in many parts of Latin America they were not. Today’s advocates for the green revolution draw most of their evidence from the positive Asian experience, while critics like to reference the malfunctions they saw in Latin America.
Did the green revolution end hunger? The green revolution has helped to reduce the prevalence of hunger in Asia today, compared to the hunger we would see if there had been no green revolution. Food became more abundant in the marketplace, and hence less costly for the poor, which enabled an increase in consumption. It also boosted the productivity of farms and hence the incomes of the farmers who adopted the new seeds. In addition, it benefited farmworkers, who found greater employment as harvests grew in size, as well as those who worked in the rural industries that thrived around the transport, storage, and processing of the additional food. These broad-based income gains brought improved nutrition. Studies done at the microlevel during the early years of the green revolution in Asia found that the higher crop yields typically led to greater calorie and protein intake among rural households within adopting regions. For example, economists Per Pinstrup-Andersen and Mauricio Jaramillo, examining the significant dietary improvements seen in one district in southern India in the 1980s, calculated
that one-third of the increased calorie intake could be attributed to the increased rice production made possible by the new seeds. The improved seed technologies of the green revolution also triggered more rapid urban industrial development in Asia. In India, every 1 percent increase in the agricultural growth rate stimulated a 0.5 percent addition to the growth rate of industrial output, boosting incomes and reducing hunger in urban areas. China had a similar experience. When the government of China undertook reforms in 1978 that gave peasant households an incentive to make use of improved seed and fertilizer systems, agricultural production increased over the next two decades at an accelerated 5.1 percent annual rate, according to World Bank calculations, setting a foundation for the rapid urban industrial growth that has now followed. As a result, and despite continued population growth, the number of Chinese people unable to feed, clothe, or adequately house themselves declined from 250 million in 1978 down to only 34 million by 1999, as reported by Chinese economists in 2000 at a development forum in Beijing. Never before had so many people escaped poverty and malnutrition in such a short period of time. The uptake of more productive farm technologies had been key to this success; between 1975 and 1990, according to economists Jikun Huang and Scott Rozelle, the new rice technologies developed independently by Chinese researchers, such as hybrid rice seeds and single-season varieties, made possible over half of the yield increases behind the achievement. Still, the green revolution by itself did not end hunger in Asia. Overall calorie consumption increased, but in some cases dietary diversity decreased as rice monoculture systems led to diminished consumption of leafy vegetables and fish. Elsewhere, the green revolution did not go far enough. In India, some rural communities were not touched by the green revolution due to inadequate rainfall and no irrigation, or because land tenure systems denied access to the poor. Economic
The Green Revolution Controversy
growth rates increased in India overall, most dramatically after the 1990s, but in states such as Gujarat and Rajasthan there has been little improvement in nutrition, particularly regarding micronutrient deficits. As a consequence, India today remains home to roughly 40 percent of all the world’s malnourished children. In 2007, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, in his 60th Anniversary Independence Day Address to the nation, candidly described India’s malnutrition problem as “a matter of national shame.”
Did the green revolution lead to greater rural inequality? It did in Latin America, but not in most of Asia. Outcomes differed in these two regions because of some important underlying social differences in the countryside. In much of Latin America, ownership of productive land and access to credit for the purchase of essential green revolution inputs like fertilizer were restricted to a privileged rural elite. When a highly productive new farm technology is introduced into such a system, only the narrow elite will be able to take it up, so inequality will worsen. In most of Asia, by contrast, access to good agricultural land and credit was not so narrowly controlled, which allowed the uptake of the new seeds to be more widely shared, with gains that were far more equitable. The history of farming in Latin America is one of long-standing social injustice. Indigenous populations went into a tragic decline soon after the arrival of Columbus, falling an estimated 75 percent by 1650 due to a combination of brutal treatment by the Spanish and Portuguese conquerors, plus deadly exposure to unfamiliar European diseases. The Europeans then replaced indigenous farming with vast semi-feudal hacienda estates, on which peasants farmed small plots for subsistence purposes without any secure right to land. To the present day, ownership of the best farming land in Latin America remains in the hands of a small commercial elite. Among the rest, some own smaller plots of less productive land, but many own nothing
at all. For every 100 smallholder farmers in Latin America who do own some land, 82 others do not. These severe rural inequalities were in some places worsened by the introduction of green revolution technologies. The commercial farming elite adopted the new seeds quickly, partly because they received government subsidies to help them purchase the fertilizers and pesticides used with the seeds. The elite commercial farmers were also given subsidized credits, research and extension assistance, new irrigation canals for their land, and exemptions from import duties on equipment like farm tractors. Poor farmers were excluded from these government benefits. Agricultural land was made more valuable by the new seeds, but this backfired on many poor farmers who had previously been allowed to plant corn and beans for subsistence on land they did not own. They would now be pushed off by the landlords, to make way for expanded commercial production of high-value crops like cotton. Some of the evicted peasants gained limited compensation in the form of seasonal employment as hired cotton pickers, but otherwise they were forced to shift their farming efforts onto more fragile sloping lands with no access to irrigation and with less fertile soil. Others decided to become slum dwellers on the fringes of the urban economy. Asia had a different experience with the green revolution seeds, because most farming was dominated not by large estates but by smaller family plots, many with access to irrigation. Because the new seeds were a biological technology, it was not necessary to have a large farm to make use of them (the opposite is true for mechanical technologies, such as tractors). Even tenant farmers who rented land could use the seeds, so long as they had irrigation and could get access to credit. In fact, the International Rice Research Institute found, in one study of 30 rice-growing villages in Asia between 1966 and 1972, that small farms (less than 1 hectare in size) actually adopted the new seeds more quickly than larger farms (over 3 hectares in size). The higher yielding green revolution varieties also brought a
The Green Revolution Controversy
substantial increase in annual farm labor demand per unit of cropped land, which pushed up rural wages to the benefit of the landless poor. In some cases, inequality gaps developed between regions that had abundant irrigation and those that did not, but small as well as large growers benefited in places where farmers had water and credit. The poverty reduction gains that came from the green revolution in Asia were dramatic. The International Food Policy Research Institute calculated that in 1975, early in the history of the green revolution, nearly 60 percent of Asians still lived on $1 a day or less. By 1995, this number had fallen to only 30 percent. Poverty continues to decline in rural Asia, as improved farming technologies have become pervasive. Farmers large and small show no interest in abandoning the new seeds, yet this does not silence determined critics. In 2002, a forum of NGOs in Rome claimed that green revolution techniques were causing a rise in world hunger. In 2004, a coalition of 670 separate NGOs sent an open letter to the director general of the United Nations FAO warning against the technical fix approach to agricultural development, and referring to the green revolution as a “tragedy.”
Was the green revolution bad for the environment? The environmental impacts of the green revolution also differed in Latin America compared to Asia. In Latin America, two distinct kinds of environmental damage from green revolution farming tended to emerge side by side. On the best lands controlled by politically favored elites, government subsidies induced excessive irrigation, too much fertilizer use, and excessive sprays of chemical pesticides, leading to occupational hazards on the farm plus pollution of the air and water downstream. In Mexico between 1961 and 1989, fertilizer subsidies led to an 800 percent increase in nitrogen fertilizer use per hectare; over the decade of the 1970s, pesticide use increased at an average annual rate of more than 8 percent.
In the Culiacan Valley, subsidized commercial tomato growers began spraying pesticides on their crops as often as 25 to 50 times each growing season. Meanwhile, a different kind of environmental damage was done by poor farmers in Latin America on non-irrigated land who lacked subsidies and credits and did not participate in the green revolution. These farmers continued using too little fertilizer rather than too much, which exhausted their soils and forced them to move onto even more fragile lands or into forest margins. In Honduras, where the population doubled between 1970 and 1990 and where the poorest two-thirds of all farmers were trapped on just 10 percent of the nation’s total farming area, destitute peasants eroded or exhausted their soils and cut much of the remaining forest cover. In Mexico, where half of all farmers were trying to subsist on only 10 percent of the nation’s farmland, population growth among the rural poor led to an expanded area under low-yield farming that devastated the environment. In the Mixteca region, according to a 1990 study by environmental scholar Angus Wright, 70 percent of the potentially arable land had lost its ability to grow crops due to soil erosion. Large parts of rural Mexico came to resemble a lifeless moonscape. Excessive water and pesticide use became a problem in many Asian countries as well, frequently due to unwise government subsidies, just as in Latin America. For example, in Punjab in northwest India in the 1980s, the government rewarded politically powerful commercial farming interests by paying 86 percent of their electric bill for pumping irrigation water. This resulted in excess water use and a precipitous drop in groundwater tables. In Indonesia in the early 1980s, the government subsidized fertilizer purchases by 68 percent, causing fertilizer use to grow by more than two-thirds. This increased nitrates in drinking water and brought nutrient runoff to streams and ponds, resulting in unwanted algae growth. Indonesia also offered an 85 percent subsidy to farmers who purchased pesticides, so excessive spraying on rice fields
The Green Revolution Controversy
soon killed the good species, such as spiders, that had earlier helped to keep bad insects under control. The bad insects, such as brown planthoppers, in the meantime evolved to resist the chemical sprays. The government was finally prompted in 1986 to ban the spraying of 57 different insecticides on rice, a move that allowed the natural enemies of the hoppers to recover, eventually bringing the damage under control. As serious as such green revolution problems were in Asia, the only thing worse might have been to introduce no high-yield seeds at all. If India had been forced to rely on its pre–green revolution, low-yield farming techniques to secure the production gains it needed during these decades of rapid population growth, there would have been no option but to expand the area under cultivation by cutting more trees, destroying more wildlife habitat, and plowing up more fragile sloping or dryland soils. According to M. S. Swaminathan, one of the scientists who led the green revolution in India, the new seeds helped India avoid “a tremendous onslaught on fragile lands and forest margins.” In 1964, Swaminathan points out, India produced 12 million tons of wheat on 14 million hectares of land. Thirty years later, thanks to the Green Revolution, India was producing 57 million tons of wheat on 24 million hectares of land. To produce this much wheat using the old seeds would have required roughly 60 million hectares, implying that an additional 36 million hectares would have been put under the plow.
Why did the original green revolution not reach Africa? Green revolution farming has been slow to reach Sub-Saharan Africa. Between 1970 and 1998, while the share of cropped area planted to modern green revolution varieties increased to 82 percent in the developing regions of Asia, and up to 52 percent in Latin America, only 27 percent of such areas was planted to such varieties in Sub-Saharan Africa. As a consequence, average cereal yields in Africa remained at only 1.1
tons per hectare versus 2.8 tons per hectare in Latin America and 3.7 tons per hectare in Asia. FAO data show that Africa’s cereal production per capita actually declined by 5 percent between 1980 and 2000. Early efforts were made in the 1960s and 1970s to introduce green revolution seed varieties into Africa, but there was little adoption because the international assistance agencies introducing the seeds had tried to jump over the tedious and time-consuming step of using locally adapted plants when breeding for yield improvements. Varieties not suited to African conditions were brought in from Latin America and Asia, and African farmers did not like them. This error was belatedly corrected when more location-specific breeding programs were launched at the beginning of the 1980s, but by then, international assistance for such programs had begun to falter. The success of the green revolution in Asia in the 1960s and 1970s, plus lower international food prices, had convinced many donors that the world food problem had been solved, so they redirected funding away from agriculture just as Africa was finally in a position to benefit. African farmers were also slow to take up new seed varieties because their lands had a more complex mix of agroecologies, and much of the land was poorly suited to conventional irrigation. Access to farmland in Africa is generally more equitable than in either Latin America or Asia, but only 4 percent of agricultural land in Africa is irrigated. When farmers must rely entirely on uncertain rainfall, the incentive to invest in improved farming technologies weakens, since the investment can be wasted if the rains fail. Africa’s weak rural road systems, which cut farmers off from markets, are another problem. Roughly 70 percent of rural Africans live more than 2 kilometers from the nearest all-weather road. Finally, Africa’s dominant food crops were not wheat and rice, the lead crops of the green revolution, but instead root crops like sweet potato or cassava, or other legumes and grains such as cowpea, white maize, sorghum, and millet.
The Green Revolution Controversy
More recently, improved farming technologies have begun to find their way into rural Africa, thanks in part to a reduction in violent conflict, advances in democracy, stronger civil societies, the AGRA initiative, and stronger efforts by international donors and national governments under the vision of an African Union Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) that explicitly targets increased farm productivity. Recent data from the World Bank show that Africa’s agricultural GDP growth rate has increased from an average of 2.5 percent per year in the 1990s, which was no more than the rate of growth of population, to an average of 3.1 percent per year in the 2000s, and up to an average of 3.7 percent per year specifically between 2007 and 2010. Significant green revolution productivity gains are now being captured by African maize farmers, and yield growth for root and tuber crops in Africa increased by 40 percent between 1980 and 2005. Rates of poverty and undernutrition in Africa, as noted earlier, have finally started coming down.
What farming approaches do green revolution critics favor? Critics of the green revolution believe that rural poverty can be reduced and farm productivity enhanced without introducing high-yielding seeds and more chemical fertilizers. These critics prefer farming models based on “agroecology,” which is an application of ecological principles to food production. This approach prefers farming systems that imitate nature, rather than those that try to dominate nature. This can mean using crop rotations and manuring rather than chemical fertilizers to replace soil nutrients, or natural biological controls for pests rather than chemical controls, and small diversified farms rather than large specialized farms. Polycultures (a variety of crops in a field) are favored over monocultures, water-harvesting systems rather than large-scale irrigation, and a reliance on local community-based knowledge rather than laboratory science. Many advocates for agroecology start with a view that
nature knows best. Human efforts to dominate biological systems will always fail, or trigger unintended consequences. One early advocate for agroecology as an alternative to the green revolution was Miguel Alteiri, an ecosystem biologist originally from Chile, who looked at farming systems in Latin America in the 1980s, where the green revolution came in for early criticism. Alteiri promoted the enhancement of traditional or indigenous knowledge systems as an alternative to the exotic and reductionist green revolution approach. Alteiri insisted on balancing any search for short-term productivity with an insistence on long-term stability, social equity, and sustainability. Green revolution advocates would contend that their approach can also be stable, equitable, and sustainable, as long as access to land and credit is widely shared, and as long as continuing investments are made in new seed varieties to stay ahead of evolving pest and disease pressures. Agroecology advocates mistrust the technical fix approach, doubting the ability of laboratory science to stay ahead of such pressures forever. Advocates for agroecology have gained prominent endorsements for their views. For example, an International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (known as the IAASTD) that was completed in 2008 warned that relying on science and technology to increase agricultural productivity—the green revolution approach— would bring too many “unintended social and environmental consequences.” This assessment, conducted under the auspices of the World Bank and the United Nations, asserts that the model of innovation that drove the original green revolution “requires revision.” It calls for more emphasis on agroecological approaches, organic approaches, and the incorporation of “traditional and local knowledge.” The IAASTD assessment was rejected by green revolution supporters, who complained that it had been influenced too heavily by the participation of non-scientists, including technology critics from NGOs such as Greenpeace International, Friends of the Earth International, and the Pesticide Action Network.
The Green Revolution Controversy
Some agroecological approaches, such as introducing biological controls for pests, or agroforestry (the mixing of trees with crops, or with pasture), have been scaled up with success. More extreme versions, such as those that reject the use of new seeds or synthetic chemicals, tend to be less productive than conventional green revolution approaches, because they require more land and more human labor. Advocates for agroecology deny that there is any disadvantage in their methods and point to a 2008 United Nations study purporting to show that agroecological and organic systems in developing countries can register strong yield gains over time, eventually “matching those in more conventional, input-intensive systems.” Critics respond that measures of crop yield per hectare need to take labor costs into account. Actual farming communities usually prefer labor-saving green revolution approaches over the labor-intensive agroecological approach. There is no example, so far, of a country that has made its farmers prosperous and its people well fed using a strict agroecological approach. The most successful farming systems are usually those that integrate some agroecological techniques with green revolution seeds and methods. Crop rotations, such as planting corn in a field one year and soybeans the next, are embraced by conventional as well as agroecological farmers. Pest management techniques that integrate biological controls with chemical controls are another example. Combining agroecological techniques such as planting leguminous trees alongside a field of high-yield hybrid maize, then using a judicious amount of chemical fertilizer, is another integrated strategy. The most rapidly growing system for integrating agroecology with conventional farming is called “no-till” farming, in which farmers do not plow the ground before planting. Instead, they use specialized machinery to sow seeds directly through crop residues from the previous harvest. This method retains soil moisture, protects the soil against erosion from runoff, and saves time and money by eliminating plowing. Conventional farmers in the United States started moving
toward this method in the 1970s, as a response to high fuel costs, and now the technique has spread to many other countries as well. Currently, about 75 percent of Brazil’s cropland is managed without tillage. Many advocates for agroecology are uncomfortable with no-till farming on a commercial scale because it requires specialized machinery that small farmers with diversified cropping systems cannot afford, and because controlling weeds without tillage often means using herbicides, or even genetically engineered seeds. Nevertheless, it is a proven method in both poor and rich countries for conserving soil and water while boosting crop yields. In 2012, IFPRI reported that on the Indo-Gangetic Plains, Indian farmers using reduced tillage practices spent an average of $55 per hectare less in cultivation costs, saved 50–60 liters of fuel and 15–50 percent of water, and increased their crop yields by 247 kilograms per hectare. Methods such as these can help put the green revolution on a more sustainable path.
How have green revolution critics shaped international policy? The political controversy over green revolution farming versus agroecology continues to rage among international policy makers, particularly within the United Nations system, where environmental and social justice NGOs have gained a strong voice. These NGOs have fought to promote agroecological and organic approaches to farming, in place of green revolution methods that rely on purchased inputs and modern agricultural science. This advocacy had an impact on the foreign assistance policies of donor countries beginning in the 1980s; international assistance was reduced for new irrigation projects in the developing world, new seed development, and sales of chemical fertilizers. Between 1980 and 2003, the real dollar value of all bilateral assistance to help modernize agriculture in the developing world declined by 64 percent, from $5.3 billion (in constant
The Green Revolution Controversy
1999 U.S. dollars) to just $1.9 billion. United States assistance to new agricultural research in Africa declined by 77 percent. This withdrawal of donor support had little effect in Latin America and Asia, where agricultural modernization had already taken off and became self-sustaining, but it left the aid-dependent governments in Africa without enough external support to begin a confident move of their own down the green revolution path. Criticism of the green revolution became particularly strong in the environmental community. In 1992 Senator Al Gore, soon to become vice president, published a best-selling book titled Earth in the Balance that depicted the green revolution as a dangerous Faustian bargain, one that used environmentally unsustainable techniques to secure yield gains that would be only temporary. Yet FAO data reveal that in the two decades after Gore issued this warning, global cereal yields continued to increase annually at the same constant linear rate (43 kilograms per hectare) that had prevailed in the two decades before Gore wrote. Later in the 1990s, advocates for modern agricultural science, such as Gordon Conway, called for new research investments in a “doubly green revolution” designed to increase yields while at the same time protecting the environment and ensuring benefits for the poor, but agroecology advocates were not attracted to this compromise because it seemed to include investments in genetically engineered crops. Even with revived concerns about the world food supply following the international food price spike of 2007–2008, the green revolution approach remained under a political cloud. The new concerns led to greater donor assistance for agricultural development, particularly in Africa, but always against a background warning from critics—in reports such as the IAASTD—that the green revolution path would sooner or later prove unsustainable. Green revolution critics even argued that the higher international food prices were, in some way, proof that the gains from current methods had been exhausted. Actual measures of total factor productivity growth in conventional
agriculture did not support this view. A 2008 study by economist Keith Fuglie in the journal Agricultural Economics revealed that, among the developing countries as a whole, the growth rate of total factor productivity in agriculture had been twice as high in the 1991–2006 period as during the earlier 1970–1990 period. The green revolution continues to be criticized by most organized environmentalists and social justice advocates in rich countries, yet it remains the approach of choice among most farmers and agricultural policy leaders in the developing world. In China and India today, green revolution seed varieties grown in monocultures with nitrogen fertilizer have become the pervasive means of food production and continue to be strongly promoted by the state. In fact, both China and India have now moved beyond the original green revolution method of seed improvement to embrace, for at least some crops, a more recent science-based approach: genetically engineered seeds (to be discussed in Chapter 13).
7 THE POLITICS OF OBESITY
Is the world facing an obesity crisis? Worldwide, obesity rates have nearly doubled in the last three decades. In 1980, 5 percent of men and 8 percent of women around the world were obese. By 2008, the rates were 10 percent for men and 14 percent for women. The problem is currently concentrated in North America and parts of Europe. In the United States, as of 2010, 36 percent of adults were obese. In England and Ireland in 2007, the rates of adult obesity were 25 percent and 22 percent, respectively. The UN World Health Organization (WHO) projects that in 2015 there will be a total of 2.3 billion overweight adults worldwide, 700 million of whom will be technically obese. In other words, there will be nearly as many obese people on earth as there are undernourished people. The problem of hunger that previously monopolized political attention is now sharing the stage with this new and rapidly growing problem of excessive food consumption.
How do we measure obesity? Obesity is a crude measure of the roundness of the body, based on a body mass index (BMI), which is body weight (in kilograms), divided by the square of height (in meters). People with a BMI between 25 and 30 are considered overweight; those with a BMI above 30 are obese; and those with a BMI above 40
are described as severely obese. Translating to more familiar terms, a 6-foot-tall individual is considered overweight above 183 pounds, obese above 220 pounds, and severely obese above 295 pounds. Adverse health consequences become far more likely as individuals go from merely overweight to obese. Those in the United States who are moderately obese have personal health care costs 20–30 percent higher than those with a healthy weight, and severe obesity more than doubles health care costs. Some studies show that obesity, on average, reduces life expectancy by 6 to 7 years. Between 1971 and 2010 in the United States, the prevalence of obesity among adults more than doubled from 14.5 percent to 36 percent. Between 2000 and 2010 alone, the rate of severe obesity among adults increased from 3.9 percent to 6.6 percent. In other words, roughly 15 million adult Americans are now 100 pounds or more over what is considered a healthy weight. Among children in the United States, the rate of obesity has increased even more dramatically, from 5 percent in 1980 up to 17 percent today. In 2012, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation projected that if obesity rates continue on their current trajectories, 39 states will have rates above 50 percent by 2030, and all 50 states will have rates above 44 percent. America remains in the lead on obesity, but other countries are now following a parallel path. In Canada today, 19.5 percent of boys under the age of 18 are obese. In Brazil since the 1980s, rates of obesity among children have increased from 4 percent up to 14 percent. Even in Japan, which has the lowest adult obesity rate in the developed world (just 3.9 percent), childhood obesity is on the rise. In Japan between 1980 and 2000, the prevalence of obesity among 10-year-old boys increased from 6 percent to 11 percent.
What are the consequences of the obesity epidemic? Strictly speaking, obesity is not a medical condition. It is perfectly possible for individuals to be both heavy and healthy.
The Politics of Obesity
Yet within larger populations, as obesity rates increase, the probability that individuals will develop ailments such as type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and high blood cholesterol will increase as well. The link between body shape and health can be challenged: one 2013 study concluded that increased sugar consumption was the key link to diabetes, independent of obesity. In 2012, however, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reported that between 1995 and 2010, the prevalence of diagnosed diabetes had increased by 50 percent or more in 42 states, and by 100 percent in more than 18 states. “These rates will continue to increase until effective interventions and policies are implemented to prevent both diabetes and obesity,” said the CDC. Organizations that campaign against obesity paint a dark picture of the future. According to one projection from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, if the current trajectory of obesity continues in the United States between 2010 and 2020, the number of new cases of type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, stroke, hypertension, and arthritis could increase 10 times. By 2030, obesity could contribute to more than 6 million cases of type 2 diabetes, 5 million cases of coronary heart disease and stroke, and more than 400,000 cases of cancer. By 2050, life expectancy in the United States may be shortened by 2 to 5 years. Obesity is primarily a personal and family concern, but compounding medical costs make it a public health issue as well. In the United States between 1998 and 2008, the medical costs of treating obesity-related diseases doubled to reach $147 billion, about 9 percent of all medical costs. By 2030, if trends continue unchecked, obesity-related medical costs could rise by another $48–66 billion a year in the United States. The heaviest costs of obesity can be personal, in the form of reduced employment and income options, social isolation, and depression. Days missed from work, more frequent hospitalizations, and more expensive medical insurance all have social as well as personal impacts. Obesity is even a national
security issue. In 2010, a panel of retired military officers found that 27 percent of all young adults in America were “too fat to serve in the military.” Between 1995 and 2008, the percentage of potential recruits who failed their physicals due to being overweight increased by nearly 70 percent.
What is the cause of today’s obesity epidemic? Obesity results when the human body persistently takes in, through eating and drinking, more caloric energy than it burns through basic metabolism and muscular exertion. The modern obesity epidemic derives from both an increase in average caloric intake and a decrease in average muscular exertion. Genetic inheritance helps explain some of the occurrence of obesity person by person within generations, but it cannot explain the rapid increase that we have seen in prevalence across generations, because human genetics does not change that fast. Increased calorie intake is the single largest source of the problem. In the United States between 1970 and 2003, average daily caloric intake increased 23 percent to a level of 2,757 calories, which is roughly 20 percent more than the World Health Organization recommends. Among children in America between 1977 and 2006, average calorie consumption increased 10 percent. Meanwhile, average muscular exertion declined, as travel took place less often on foot and more often by car, and as physical demands in both the home and the workplace were reduced. Most work in America now takes place while sitting in chairs, or behind the wheel of a vehicle. In the home, rugs, dishes, and clothing are now cleaned with electrical power rather than muscular exertion. The removal of snow, the cutting of grass, and the trimming of hedges have all been motorized. Washing automobiles is now automated, and seasonal chores such as hanging storm windows no longer exist. Stair climbing has been replaced by elevators. Only 4 percent of elementary schools, 8 percent of middle schools,
The Politics of Obesity
and 2 percent of high schools now provide daily physical education for all students. While 20 percent of trips between school and home were on foot in 1977, that figure had fallen to just 12 percent by 2001. Despite a booming fitness industry, working out has actually declined, as commuting times have lengthened and as more leisure time is now spent sitting in front of the home computer. Among American men 40 to 74 years of age, since 1990 the number of people who report exercising three times a week has dropped from 57 percent to 43 percent. Young people own fancier bicycles but ride them less often. By the late 1990s, the majority of American children watched more than 5 hours of television a day.
Does cheap food cause obesity? Personal calorie consumption has increased in part because food has become cheap, especially relative to income. Over the course of the twentieth century, the real cost of food commodities declined by 50 percent in the United States, thanks primarily to productivity growth on the farm, while average consumer income was at the same time increasing by roughly 400 percent. Food today is so cheap relative to income that increasing quantities are wasted and often simply thrown away. The low cost of food in America is sometimes blamed on farm subsidies, but most agricultural economists disagree. One study by three economists published in the journal Food Policy in 2008 found that if national farm subsidy policies were eliminated the cost to consumers of soybeans, rice, sugar, fruits and vegetables, beef, pork, and milk would actually fall more, not increase. A later study published in Health Economics in 2012 showed that if all farm subsidies were removed—including the measures that reduce imports of cheap food from abroad—the cost to Americans of sugar and dairy products would go down enough to induce a small increase in calorie consumption of about 3,000 to 3,900 additional calories a year for a typical adult.
Critics often assert that farm subsidies in the United States have generated too much corn production, which in turn lowers the price of livestock feed, making meat products artificially cheap. Corn prices have been slightly lowered by some farm policies in recent years, but on balance corn prices have been artificially raised, thanks to other government policies that promote the use of corn for ethanol production. The price of corn has also been driven up by import restrictions on sugar that encourage the use of corn-based sweeteners, such as high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). If sugar import restrictions were removed, the price of both sugar and HFCS in the United States would fall by roughly 15 percent, making sodas, candy, and ice cream even cheaper, and the obesity crisis even worse. Farm support policies throughout the industrial world actually tend to make food artificially expensive, not artificially cheap, because they so frequently include restrictions on imports. This is even more the case for Europe and Japan than for the United States. According to calculations by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), government policies in the European Union in 2009 made food costs for consumers 7 percent higher than they would have been without subsidies, and in Japan 42 percent higher. Another charge, that junk-food prices have fallen in the United States while fruit and vegetable prices have not, is also questionable. A 2008 study by the Economic Research Service at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) showed that over the previous 25 years the price of fruit and vegetable products in the marketplace (controlling for quality and season of the year) fell at almost exactly the same rate as the price of chocolate chip cookies, cola, ice cream, and potato chips. Not only are fresh fruits and vegetables cheaper than ever before when sold in season, they are also more widely available out of season. American supermarkets today carry as many as 400 different produce items, up from an average of just 150 different items in the 1970s. Access to healthy and affordable food
The Politics of Obesity
has been increasing, not decreasing. Unfortunately, access to unhealthy food has increased even more.
Do fast foods and junk foods cause obesity? Yes, but other foods are a problem as well. In 2011 the New England Journal of Medicine published a study that revealed that the top contributors to weight gain in the United States included red meat and processed meats, sugar-sweetened beverages, and potatoes, including mashed potatoes and french fries. The single biggest weight-inducing food was the potato chip. Other studies suggest that the single largest driver of the obesity epidemic is sweetened beverages. The average American today gets more than 450 calories a day from beverages, including juices, dairy drinks, sweetened soft drinks, and alcohol. Beverages provide twice as many calories today as they did in 1965, with more than two-thirds of the increase coming from sweetened fruit juices and soft drinks. Specialists calculate that the recent increase in obesity can be accounted for by the consumption of a single extra 20-ounce soft drink each day. In one study of overweight or obese high schoolers, when the sugary drinks normally consumed were replaced with sugar-free alternatives, average weight loss over a 12-month period was 4 pounds. It is sometimes alleged that the sweetening of beverages with high fructose corn syrup rather than natural sugar has made those drinks more obesity inducing, but the evidence to support this charge is weak. The HFCS used in soft drinks consists of 55 percent fructose and 45 percent glucose, not significantly different from ordinary sugar, which is 50 percent fructose and 50 percent glucose. Michael Jacobson, director of the Center for Science and the Public Interest, has said that the popular idea that HFCS carries a greater obesity risk is “an urban myth.” Fast food restaurant meals are often an invitation to obesity. It is not unusual for an individual meal to contain more
than 1,000 calories. It takes an hour and 20 minutes of jogging to burn off this much energy. A 2013 study from the Center for Science and the Public Interest found that 91 percent of kids’ meals at fast food chains in the United States did not even meet the industry’s own “Kids LiveWell” nutrition standards. Careful studies that control for variables such as income, education, and race have shown that obesity rates among ninth-grade schoolchildren are 5 percent higher if the school is located within one-tenth of a mile of a fast food outlet. The National Restaurant Association rejects such studies as “slapdash,” yet local political pressures are rising to zone fast food restaurants away from public schools, and the fast food chains themselves have responded with visible menu changes. In 2009, Burger King announced three new kids’ meals that included smaller burgers, sliced apples designed to look like french fries, reduced-sodium chicken tenders, and fat-free chocolate milk. McDonald’s began to offer apples and yogurt.
Is the food industry to blame for the way we eat? Yes, to an extent. The modern food industry does more than simply process, package, and deliver foods to consumers. It also designs the taste and consistency of those foods, manipulating the ingredients, including the sugar, fat, and salt content, to make them more difficult for consumers to resist. Between 1994 and 2006, food companies in the United States introduced about 600 new children’s food products; half were candies or chewing gums, and another one-fourth were other types of sweets or salty snacks. Dr. David Kessler, a former head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), charged in 2009 that modern food companies are in part to blame for our overeating because they design foods for irresistibility, delivering tastes and textures that hit an intentionally addictive “bliss point.” The food industry also advertises foods to children not old enough to understand the health implications of consuming
The Politics of Obesity
high-calorie, low-nutrient junk foods. American children spend about $30 billion of their own money every year on such foods, and in 2006 an Institute of Medicine study concluded that the choices made were to some extent shaped by corporate marketing. The Center for Science and the Public Interest asserts that the food and beverage industry spends $2 billion every year advertising food to children. Kids aged 2–11 years see an average of 13 food ads a day. Food companies have now gone beyond television ads, targeting children who use smartphones and laptops as well (in the United States, the average first use of a smartphone takes place at age 7). A favorite vehicle has become online games, available on sites like Candystand.com, pioneered by Kraft Foods and the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company. Kraft recently released an iPad app, “Dinner, Not Art,” in which players slide pieces of Mac & Cheese around the screen to create macaroni art. The United States does less to regulate food advertising than most other wealthy countries. In 1980, Congress barred the Federal Trade Commission from making broad new rules on food advertising to children. Under pressure, some companies have at least taken voluntary action. In 2012, the Walt Disney Company announced that it would no longer accept advertisements for junk food on its child-oriented television and radio sites. Governments in Sweden, Norway, Austria, Luxembourg, Belgium, and Quebec have all banned television junk-food advertising during children’s programming. As calorie consumption has increased overall, the consumption of many nutritious foods in America has actually declined. In 2012, the Department of Agriculture reported that the share of family food budgets going toward the purchase of fruits and vegetables declined between 1998 and 2006. Over the past two decades, the share of Americans aged 40 to 74 who eat five servings of fruits and vegetables a day has dropped from 42 percent to 26 percent. Multiple factors have driven this outcome, including more women working outside of the home (resulting in fewer home-prepared meals), more
commuting by car and a rapidly growing preference for meals that can be held in one hand while driving, greater leisure time spent snacking while watching television, and also less cigarette smoking (an appetite suppressant). The food industry, represented politically in the United States by the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), attempts to present itself as a guardian of consumer health and well-being, “committed to helping arrest and reverse the growth of obesity around the world.” The GMA’s favored response to the obesity crisis is “consumer education,” rather than new taxes or regulations. The Center for Consumer Freedom, an organization funded by restaurant and food industries, warns against taxes and regulations, so as not to “reduce the number of choices Americans have when they sit down to eat.” Just the same, food companies have recently begun to change their behavior even without direct regulation. In 2005, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services jointly with the Department of Agriculture published new Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which recommended that half of daily grain intake should come from whole grains. In response, bread companies voluntarily reformulated products so they could claim a higher whole grain content (yet some then defeated the purpose by making the reformulation more palatable with added quantities of sugar, salt, or fat). In 2006, the Food and Drug Administration began to require disclosure of trans fat content on food labels, and New York City banned trans fats in restaurant foods. This experience induced a number of food manufacturers, including Nestlé, Kraft, Campbell’s, Kellogg’s, and Frito-Lay, to reformulate products to eliminate trans fats entirely, and several major food service companies, including McDonald’s and Burger King, announced their intent to begin using frying oils with no trans fats. Kentucky Fried Chicken began replacing trans fats before they had to, in anticipation of the New York City ban. A leading supermarket operator in the United States, Delhaize America, recently began promoting a system called
The Politics of Obesity
Guiding Stars, which rates the nutritional value of most of the food and beverage products sold in their stores. Foods that have more vitamins, minerals, dietary fiber, and whole grains, and less fat, sugar, sodium, or cholesterol are given stars. Customer purchases in these supermarkets have shifted significantly toward the products that have been awarded stars. Yet the political power of the food industry has blocked any move to make such a system mandatory.
Do “food deserts” cause obesity? Obesity is a growing problem among all categories of Americans. Between 1994 and 2008, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the prevalence of obesity increased in adults at all income and education levels. Yet factors such as residency, income, education, and race do make a difference. Some of the highest obesity rates are found among African Americans and Hispanics, many of whom live at lower income levels in urban areas. This has given rise to the idea that some modern city dwellers live in “food deserts,” where there is a shortage of supermarkets selling fresh fruits and vegetables. Residents may have no choice but to eat at fast food restaurants, or to purchase energy-dense packaged and processed foods from corner convenience stores. When the USDA examined this idea using data from the 2010 census, it found that almost 10 percent of the U.S. population, or roughly 30 million Americans, did live in low-income areas more than 1 mile from a supermarket. However, only 1.8 percent of all households lived more than 1 mile from a supermarket and did not have a vehicle. Statistically, a convincing link between limited access to supermarkets and obesity has been difficult to establish. Research suggests that the most powerful link may not be low access to supermarkets, but high access to fast food and corner stores. One 2012 study found that poor neighborhoods had nearly twice as many fast food restaurants and convenience
stores as wealthier ones. Some low-income Americans also face time burdens that get in the way of preparing nutritious family meals. Single working parents, for example, may be short of time as well as money. At the end of a work day, they find it more convenient to pick up a bucket of KFC fried chicken, instead of shopping at a market, taking the time to prepare a healthy meal at home, and then cleaning up the pots and pans. Increasingly, our meals are not taken at home. In the United States, away-from-home food spending increased from 26 percent of total food outlays per person in 1970 to 46 percent by 2002. The total number of food service establishments in the country nearly doubled over this same period. Most restaurant menus are geared to pleasure and convenience rather than health. It is revealing that 17 percent of all meals ordered from restaurants in America are now eaten in cars. Unstructured eating of this kind is no longer unique to the United States. Throughout Europe, a rapid increase in the number of women in the workforce has also undercut traditional at-home meal preparation, creating a parallel shift toward the consumption of high-calorie fast foods and convenience foods. In the United Kingdom, 27 percent of all food spending is now for meals from outside the home, and in Spain, 26 percent. In France, time spent on meal preparation at home has fallen by half since the 1960s, and fast food restaurants are on the rise even in Greece and Portugal. The much-praised Mediterranean diet (based on vegetables, fruit, unrefined grains, and olive oil) is now disappearing even from Mediterranean countries. As fast food chains spread in Greece between 1982 and 2002, the percentage of overweight boys increased by more than 200 percent, and the increase has continued since then. Italy and Spain are not far behind, with more than 50 percent of adults now either overweight or obese. In 2008, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) issued a report showing that the Mediterranean diet had “decayed into a moribund state.”
The Politics of Obesity
What government actions are being taken to reverse the obesity crisis? In the United States, government action at the federal level to combat obesity has so far been weak, while the strongest actions have been taken at the local or municipal level. Stronger national policies have been set in place in Asia and Europe. The strongest policies can be found in the countries where obesity problems are least advanced. Policy action to combat obesity has been hard for the United States in part because many do not yet see it as a collective problem. One reason is that health care costs in America have not traditionally been socialized; they have been covered instead through employer-provided or private health insurance systems. Many in America claim not to see obesity as a problem at all. Close to half of all obese Americans say that their own body weight is not an issue, and more than 40 percent of parents with obese children describe their child as being “about the right weight.” Social acceptance of obesity is actively promoted by civil rights advocates for the overweight, led in the United States by the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA), an organization that has been operating since 1969. Governments have a wide array of policy options to consider in response to obesity. At the least coercive end of the spectrum, they can try public education campaigns about healthy eating, or require health ratings on packaged foods, or require calorie counts on restaurant meals. More coercive steps might include restrictions on advertising of some foods to children, or mandatory counseling by primary care physicians. Subsidy policies might be used to reduce the price or increase the availability of nutritious foods, and tax or regulatory policies might be used to increase the price and reduce the availability of energy-dense, non-nutritious foods. On the physical activity side, governments could move back to requiring physical education in schools, or invest more in playgrounds, bike paths, and sidewalks. Mandates, taxes, and regulations are
normally the strongest policy instruments available to governments, yet a 2010 study by the OECD revealed that governments in wealthy democratic societies were primarily relying on weak instruments like information campaigns, or on subsidies, to promote more healthful eating choices. Some governments in Europe and Asia have experimented with stronger measures. In October 2011, Denmark implemented a nationwide 9 percent tax on saturated fat in foods such as bacon, cheese, and butter. Denmark was following Hungary, which had passed a similar tax aimed at products with high sugar, fat, and salt contents (with the revenue going toward health care costs). The Danish tax proved unpopular and was rescinded one year later when it was noted that butter consumption had failed to decline, and when Danes began avoiding the tax by purchasing cheese from across the border in Germany. This discouraging experience gave pause to several other European countries—including Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and Germany—that were considering a similar tax. In France since 2004, the government has been operating a Let’s Prevent Obesity in Children program in which children from 5 to 12 years old are weighed and their BMI calculated annually, with a letter to their parents reporting and explaining the result. The strongest measures so far in the industrial world have been taken by the country with the lowest obesity prevalence, Japan. In 2008, Japan’s Ministry of Health adopted a “metabo law” that established waistline standards to be monitored by employers once a year, under Japan’s national health care coverage system. If companies did not reduce the number of overweight employees by 10 percent by 2012, and 25 percent by 2015, they would be required to pay more money into a health care program for the elderly. An estimated 56 million Japanese will have their waists measured under this program each year. Even more intrusive was a policy adopted by the non-democratic country of Singapore, which cut down on lunch sizes and kept children after school for mandatory
The Politics of Obesity
exercise if they failed to control their weight. Obesity prevalence did decline. In the United States, strong policy measures at the federal level have so far been impossible, thanks in part to the lobbying power of the food and beverage industry. In 2009, when anti-obesity advocates proposed a small tax on the sale of sweetened soft drinks to help pay for national health care reform, the American Beverage Association (ABA), which represents the beverage industry, spent $18.9 million in a lobbying effort that blocked the tax. The beverage industry campaigns hard against soda taxes at the state and local level as well. In 2010, after the state legislature in Washington imposed a small tax on soft drinks to help balance the state budget during the economic recession, the ABA spent $16.5 million to promote a ballot initiative that promptly overturned the tax. In 2012, voters in two midsized California towns rejected soda taxes after the ABA spent several million dollars on advertisements and on paid canvassers to block these measures. The strongest national legislation currently in place against obesity in the United States is the 2010 Healthy, HungerFree Kids Act. This law reformed the National School Lunch Program, which provides meals to 31 million children a day. The new 2010 law expanded the number of low-income children eligible for meal subsidies, so long as schools served increased portions of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, while limiting sodium, fat, and calories. Advocates for regulating school menus point to a 2007 initiative in Mississippi that led to a 13 percent decline in obesity among elementary school children. Critics observe that students consume only about 25 percent of their calories in school, making this a weak policy instrument. In addition, the 2010 law was blunted when the frozen pizza industry secured language from Congress qualifying pizza (with tomato sauce) as a vegetable. Potato farmers also managed to block curbs on how often french fries could be served. The responses of schoolchildren to the 2010 law have been
mixed. Vegetable servings often end up in the trash. Students in one Pittsburgh suburb organized a lunch strike, and in some other schools participation in the lunch program has fallen by 70 percent. Anticipating that some children might spurn the more nutritious offerings in the cafeteria line and turn instead to candy, chips, or beverages from vending machines, the authors of the law simultaneously empowered the USDA to set national nutrition standards for school vending machine foods and drinks. A second federal initiative has been First Lady Michelle Obama’s 2009 “Let’s Move” campaign to reduce childhood obesity. In addition to public education, this campaign sought to persuade Wal-Mart, Walgreens, Supervalu, and other grocers to commit to locating more stores in low-income neighborhoods. In one response, a team of grocery industry groups, health care organizations, and banks commited $200 million to eliminating “food deserts” in California. Also in support of the initiative, Wal-Mart announced that, by 2015, it would remove all trans fats from its stores and reduce salt and added sugars by 25 percent and 10 percent, respectively. Additionally, a restaurant company that owns Olive Garden and Red Lobster committed to reducing total calories and salt across its menus. By far the strongest government actions to combat obesity in the United States have come at the state and local level. Currently, from 500 to 600 school districts across the country have policies that limit the amount of fat, trans fat, sodium, and sugar in food sold or served at school. The state of California has banned the sale of soft drinks in public schools and since 2007 has specified that snacks sold during the school day must contain no more than 35 percent sugar by weight and derive no more than 35 percent of their calories from fat. In 2012, researchers determined that these measures had helped to reduce high school student food intake in California by 158 calories a day, compared to other states. Vigorous responses at the state and municipal level can make a difference. In New York City and Philadelphia, the number of obese
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schoolchildren declined by 5 percent between 2007 and 2011, and in Los Angeles by 3 percent. At the municipal level in the United States, the City of New York has attempted the strongest measures of all, but not always with success. Beginning in 2008 in New York, restaurant chains were obliged to post calorie counts for the dishes they serve; however, one New York University study found that total calories purchased did not change as a result. In 2010, New York City sought permission from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to eliminate caloric soda from eligibility for local purchase under the SNAP program, but this request was refused. In 2012, the city moved to block sales of soda and other high-calorie drinks in containers larger than 16 ounces, but early in 2013, this measure was blocked by a state judge one day before it was set to take effect.
Who lobbies for and against stronger policies on obesity? In the United States, the most visible advocates for stronger policies on obesity include public interest lobby groups such as the Center for Science and the Public Interest (CSPI), private foundations dedicated to improving health such as the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation, and university-based think tanks such as the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University. Individuals who are obese and citizen groups with members who suffer from obesity are not usually in the lead. Those who suffer from obesity more often organize for social acceptance or for the purpose of seeking more affordable treatments. Taxes on sodas or energy-dense snack foods are seen as regressive on the poor and are unpopular even within low-income or minority communities where obesity is a serious problem. For example, the president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) openly opposed Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s 2012 move to ban large servings of sugary drinks. In 2010 when New York asked for permission to exempt soda from SNAP coverage,
leaders from the minority community criticized the move as suggesting that SNAP recipients were unable to make smart food choices. A 2013 survey from the Associated Press and the Center for Public Affairs Research revealed that 70 percent of Americans support requirements to post calorie counts on menus, and 80 percent would support requiring more physical activity in school, but 60 percent are opposed to taxes that target unhealthy foods. Only one-third consider obesity a community problem; most consider it to be an issue primarily for individuals. The strongest opposition to more effective obesity policies in the United States comes from the food and beverage industry, which argues that what we decide to eat should be a personal choice. Kevin Keane, a spokesperson for the American Beverage Association, said in 2009, “It’s overreaching when government uses the tax code to tell people what they can eat or drink.” When the City of New York attempted to restrict the sale of large drinks in 2012, it was sued by the American Beverage Association, the National Restaurant Association, a soft drink workers union, and groups representing interests ranging from movie theater owners to Korean American grocers. Nationally, a Center for Consumer Freedom, funded by the restaurant and food industry, regularly criticizes any government effort to shape or reduce food choices. Weak obesity-prevention policies in the United States also derive, to some extent, from the social influence of groups organized not for obesity prevention but for treatment, such as the annual $50 billion diet and exercise industry. Pharmaceutical and medical companies also profit from selling treatments (not cures) for those who develop type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. In contrast, many employers and insurers have a greater interest in prevention than in treatment. The United Health Group now offers a health insurance plan in which a $5,000 yearly deductible can be reduced to $1,000 if a person is not obese and does not smoke. Financial inducements have even been tried. In 2009, the National
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Health Service in the United Kingdom ran a pilot program that offered cash payments of up to 425 pounds depending on how much weight was lost (the program was called “pounds for pounds”). Nearly 800 people joined the scheme, but most dropped out. Those who completed the program lost weight, but many subsequently gained it back. From a public policy perspective, governments must take care not to treat excessive calorie consumption as parallel to cigarette smoking, alcohol abuse, or narcotic drug use. Unlike tobacco, alcohol, or narcotics, calories from food are absolutely essential to human health. And unlike smoking, being obese presents no “passive” health risk to others. Social risks such as impaired driving, domestic violence, and criminal behavior are also missing in the case of obesity. Most important, a significant share of obese people are quite healthy, and for some individuals the condition is driven more by genetics than lifestyle. Government policies that punish or stigmatize such individuals must be avoided. The best intervention is usually private counseling from a trusted personal physician.
8 THE POLITICS OF FARM SUBSIDIES AND TRADE
Do all governments give subsidies to farmers? Nearly all governments in rich countries subsidize the income of farmers. In 2011, according to calculations by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), government policies in 34 rich countries transferred a total of $252 billion worth of income to farmers, mostly by taking it away from taxpayers and food consumers. On average, 19 percent of total farm receipts in these countries came from such government policies, although in some it was much higher (more than 50 percent in Norway, Switzerland, and Japan) and in others much lower (less than 5 percent in Australia, Chile, and New Zealand). In the United States, 8 percent of farm receipts depended on government interventions in 2011, while in the European Union it was 22 percent. The policies that transfer this income to farmers include direct cash payments, market or trade restrictions to boost crop prices, subsidies to cheapen the purchase of crop insurance, and subsidies intended to reinforce environmentally sustainable planting practices. In the United States, most income transfers to farmers come at the expense of taxpayers, but in countries that support farm income primarily through import
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restrictions—such as Japan, Korea, Norway, and Switzerland— most of the transfer comes at the expense of consumers, who are being forced to pay much higher prices for food. It is sometimes presumed that farm subsidies make food cheap for consumers by boosting production, but this is not the case. The purpose of farm subsidies is to boost the income of farmers, not to boost food production. Import restrictions do sometimes encourage more domestic crop production, but not enough to make up for the blocked imports, so the prices that domestic food consumers pay are still artificially high, not artificially low. Governments in poor developing countries provide much less income support to farmers, even though these countries have many more farmers. In fact, poor countries often tax their farmers, while subsidizing food costs for urban consumers. They rig their internal markets to oblige farmers to sell food at an artificially low price, thus creating an income transfer away from farmers and toward food consumers. So while policies in rich countries tend to be rural-biased, policies in many poor countries tend to be urban-biased.
What explains the tendency of all rich countries to subsidize farm income? Governments usually start subsidizing farmers during the initial stages of their industrial development. All economic sectors gain income and wealth during this industrialization process, including the agricultural sector, but larger farms will start to buy up smaller farms, since a bigger size makes it easier to take advantage of powered machinery such as tractors and harvesting combines. The mechanization process leads to farm consolidation and an out-migration of labor from rural communities. Rural towns will begin to depopulate, small shops will struggle, and public schools will have to consolidate or close. Confronting such changes, smaller farmers will usually organize to seek assistance or protection from government. Feeling that they are losing out in the economic marketplace,
they will support lobby group actions in the political marketplace that demand income support through tax breaks, subsidized loans, import restrictions, market interventions to raise crop prices, and even direct cash payments. The countries of Europe were the first to industrialize, so they were also the first to provide subsidy programs of this kind to support farmers, initially during and then after World War I. The United States began regulating agricultural markets and providing subsidy benefits to farmers a bit later, during the Great Depression of the 1930s, through the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) of 1933, as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal program. Japan embraced agricultural subsidy policies still later, when that nation moved toward full industrial development in the 1950s and 1960s; in Taiwan and South Korea, subsidies came still later, when rapid industrial growth reached those countries in the 1970s and 1980s. The predictability of this policy response to industrialization has been studied and measured by economists. One 1986 study of protection offered to farm sectors across the industrial world, by economists Masayoshi Honma and Yujiro Hayami, found that 60 to 70 percent of all variations in the protection level given to farmers could be explained solely through reference to the comparative advantage lost by the agricultural sector relative to the industrial sector.
Do farmers in rich countries need subsidies to survive? When farm subsidies were initiated in the United States in 1933, most farmers were relatively poor, with average income less than half that of non-farmers. At this point, in the depths of the Great Depression, subsidies to farmers had some economic and social justification. The justification began to diminish, however, when millions of poor farmers left the land during and after World War II, taking higher paying jobs in urban industry. The result was a consolidation of farms into much larger and more productive units, with most no longer
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needing subsidies to prosper. Thanks to farm consolidations, the greatest share of all food production in America today comes from very large commercial farmers who enjoy average incomes that would be significantly higher than the nonfarm average even without subsidies. Their average net worth is higher still, because of the valuable land, buildings, and machinery they own. As of 2007, according to USDA surveys, more than half of all farm production in the United States came from very large family farms with annual product sales greater than $500,000, an average household income of $268,000, and an average net worth of $2.5 million. Despite the large scale of commercial farm operations in the United States, family ownership remains the norm; only 18 percent of farm production in the United States comes from farms that are not family owned. Large commercial farmers do not need subsidies to remain prosperous, yet they continue to get the largest share of the subsidies. Most farm subsidies remain linked to current or past production volume, so the biggest farms get the biggest subsidies. In the United States in 2007, the very large farms that generated 53 percent of production were only 5 percent of all farms, but they received 45 percent of all agricultural subsidies. In Europe, the wealthiest 20 percent of farmers typically receive over 80 percent of the subsidies. Efforts to improve the targeting of subsidy payments are routinely blocked by lobbyists representing commercial farmers. In 2008 President George W. Bush proposed to Congress that the law should be changed to prevent the delivery of some subsidy payments to farmers who earned more than $200,000, but the Senate voted that the cap should instead be set at $750,000, and the House of Representatives said there should be no cap at all.
Why are farm subsidies hard to cut? Non-farmers outnumber farmers by at least 20 to 1 in most rich countries, yet they seldom mount effective campaigns to
cut farm subsidies. In part this is because city people respect the heritage of farming and want to help those working on the land, and also because few have any idea how poorly targeted the subsidies are. In addition, smaller numbers of farmers find it easier to organize for political action than very large numbers of consumers and taxpayers, according to the “logic of collective action” originally spelled out by economist Mancur Olson. Very large groups (like food consumers) find it hard to organize because non-participation is harder to notice and police. For the same reason, some smaller commodity groups (e.g., sugar farmers) do better at getting subsidies than larger commodity groups, such as wheat or soybean farmers. Also, as the total number of farmers continues to shrink with industrial development, the average benefit per farmer can continue going up without generating higher budget costs overall. Moreover, if the budget cost of farm support does increase in a wealthy country, it may not be noticed alongside the rising costs of much larger budget items, such as health care costs or defense spending. Finally, when farm supports make food more expensive in rich countries, consumers will tend not to notice because food spending will still be falling relative to income. The average share of personal income spent on food in the United States has fallen from 41 percent a century ago to just 10 percent today. This drop would have been even greater without farm income support programs, but this is something consumers do not know, or at least it is something they do not notice. Despite these powerful political forces that tend to keep subsidies in place, once the farming share of the national workforce shrinks to a small enough size (below about 5 percent), the level of support given to farmers will usually reach a peak and begin to decline. At this point, the number of farmers will become too small, and their prosperity too conspicuous, to sustain a continued growth in support. This is now happening in both Europe and the United States. Between 2000 and 2011, the annual amount of income transferred to farmers through
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government programs in Europe declined by 21 percent, and in the United States by 40 percent. This decline also reflected an emergence of higher commodity prices, since farm subsidy programs that are linked to crop prices will automatically shrink when commodity prices rise, as they did particularly after 2007.
What is the “farm bill” and what is the “farm lobby”? The legislative package that renews America’s farm subsidy entitlement system roughly every five years is known as the “farm bill,” and the organized groups that promote the subsidies in this bill are known as the “farm lobby.” Passage of the farm bill is a process controlled almost entirely by Congress. President George W. Bush tried to veto the 2008 farm bill because it carried a five-year budget cost of $286 billion that he considered wasteful, but Congress easily overrode his veto, by margins of 316–108 votes in the House and 82–13 votes in the Senate. The secret to every farm bill’s success in Congress is the lead role played by the Agricultural Committees of the House and the Senate, where members from farm states enjoy a dominant presence and are rewarded for their efforts with generous campaign contributions from organizations representing the farmers who get the subsidies. The Agriculture Committees draft the legislation that later goes to the floor for a final vote, and in the drafting process they take care to satisfy the minimum needs of both Republican and Democratic members, ensuring bipartisan support within the committee. The farm bill enacted in 2002 actually passed the House Agriculture Committee without a single dissenting vote. The drafters also give generous treatment both to Northern crops (such as wheat and corn) and Southern crops (such as cotton and rice), and they take care to include generous funding for domestic food and nutrition programs (like the “Food Stamp” program, now called SNAP) to lock in support from urban district members. Then
they add some measures to please environmentalists, such as a “Conservation Reserve” program that pays farmers to leave their land (temporarily) idle. The final package becomes impossible to stop; it is what students of legislative politics call a “committee-based logroll.” Once the farm bill leaves the committees and reaches the floor, classic vote trading will then push it toward successful enactment: farm state members implicitly or explicitly promise that they will vote for future measures of interest to non-farm members. For urban and suburban members, a single “aye” vote on the farm bill once every five years pays off when their own pet projects later come up for a vote. This farm subsidy renewal process is supported by a formidable nexus of institutions often referred to as an “iron triangle.” At the congressional corner of the triangle are the House and Senate Agriculture Committees, populated and chaired by strong farm subsidy advocates. At the Executive Branch corner is the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), which administers the subsidy programs and values them to protect the department from diminished relevance in a postagricultural age. At the third corner are the private farm lobby organizations. The best-known of these are two “general” farm organizations, the American Farm Bureau Federation (commonly known as the Farm Bureau), which represents the interests of large commercial farmers, mostly Republicans, and the National Farmers Union, which represents the interests of smaller farmers, mostly Democrats. When it comes to shaping the details of the farm bill, however, the most influential private lobby organizations are those representing individual commodity producer groups, such as the National Corn Growers Association, the U.S. Wheat Associates, the National Cotton Council of America, or the National Milk Producers Federation. These organizations contribute to the reelection campaigns of their favorite Agriculture Committee members, then send their skilled and always affable operatives to work the committee rooms and halls of Congress during the legislative drafting process.
The Politics of Farm Subsidies and Trade
The continuing clout of the farm lobby was clearly visible in the outcome of the 2008 farm bill debate, which took place at a time when most of America’s farmers were enjoying enormous prosperity thanks to the highest market prices for farm commodities seen in more than three decades. Net farm income in 2008 reached $89 billion, 40 percent above the average of the previous ten years. Yet the farm lobby asserted that American agriculture was facing “emergencies” of various kinds and needed a new “safety net” for protection. The 2008 bill thus included added spending for research on organic agriculture and specialty crops, new conservation measures, block grants to promote horticultural products, and a new Average Crop Revenue Election (ACRE) program. This routine renewal of farm subsidies proved more difficult in 2012, when the Republican leadership of the House of Representatives prevented legislation from coming to a floor vote. This happened partly out of embarrassment that the agriculture committee had proposed only a 3.5 percent spending cut in the middle of an extreme budget crisis. Direct payments to farmers would have been ended under the draft legislation, and the SNAP (food stamp) program would be cut slightly, but much of the money saved would go into more generous subsidies for crop insurance, a newly popular measure with farmers following the 2012 drought. In the end, voting for a new farm bill was postponed until some time in 2013, as part of a larger congressional deal over the so-called ‘fiscal cliff.’ This meant that in the short term existing subsidies would be extended with no cuts at all. In 2011 and 2012, farm income levels in the United States were the highest and second highest on record and would have been so even without subsidies—yet the subsidies were not taken away.
Is the use of corn for ethanol a subsidy to farmers? Agricultural crops such as sugar or corn can be fermented to produce ethyl alcohol (ethanol), which is then blended with gasoline for use as an automobile fuel. Beginning in 1978,
Congress began promoting the use of corn for fuel by providing tax credits to those that blended ethanol with gasoline, and by setting in place tariffs to block the import of cheaper sugarbased ethanol from Brazil and the Caribbean. The promotion of corn-based ethanol was then ramped up under the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, when Congress added a quantitative mandate that ethanol use from products like corn should total at least 15 billion gallons by 2015. The ostensible purpose of this new Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) was to reduce America’s dependence on imported oil for reasons of national security, but there were also clear financial benefits to the ethanol industry and corn growers, both of which were strong advocates for these measures. The new government mandate helped to trigger a dramatic expansion of the ethanol industry in the United States, accompanied by an increasing diversion of corn into fuel production. Between 1983 and 2010, ethanol production jumped from 2.8 billion gallons to 13 billion gallons, and by 2012, the percentage of America’s corn harvest processed in ethanol distilleries had reached an astonishing 40 percent (however, about one-third of what is processed returns to the agricultural market as high protein feed for animals). Some of this diversion of agricultural crops to fuel use would have taken place even without government subsidies and mandates, given the higher market price for petroleum after 2005. When petroleum prices are high and corn prices are low, market forces alone will divert more corn into use as a feedstock for fuel. The subsidies and mandates undeniably accelerated the growth of a corn-based ethanol industry in the United States, but if the price of oil goes high enough, the ethanol industry will expand even without government props.
What is the value of promoting corn-based ethanol in the United States? Corn-based ethanol can sometimes makes commercial sense, but on energy security and environmental grounds it makes
The Politics of Farm Subsidies and Trade
very little sense. In the search for national energy independence, ethanol from corn can never offer more than a small gain. According to one 2007 study in the journal Regulation, even if 100 percent of United States corn production were processed for ethanol, the total share of national gasoline consumption displaced would be just 3.5 percent. The environmental consequences of switching from fossil fuels to corn-based ethanol are also unappealing, in part because fossil fuels must be burned while planting, harvesting, and processing the corn, as well as to manufacture the required fertilizers. Growing more corn for use as fuel also has adverse land-use implications. A 2008 study by Joe Fargioine in the journal Science concluded that when worldwide land-use changes are taken into account, the greenhouse gas emissions from first producing and then burning corn-based ethanol are greater than those from producing and burning gasoline. It makes greater environmental sense, and also greater commercial sense, to burn ethanol that has been produced from sugar rather than corn, yet policy in the United States promotes ethanol from corn, because corn is what American farms produce. Nonetheless, the politics of ethanol changed in the United States in 2011, in part because the $6 billion annual budget cost of the blending tax credit had become harder for Congress to justify in the face of Tea Party criticism of deficit spending, and also in part because with the mandate in place—and with continued high petroleum prices—the tax credit was no longer necessary to preserve the industry. In addition, shale gas production was reducing America’s need for energy imports, so the national security argument was less urgent. As a consequence, Congress allowed both the tax credit to blenders and the tariff on imported ethanol to expire in 2011. The RFS mandates remained in place, but then in the summer of 2012, a severe drought hit the corn-growing regions of the United States, pushing corn prices up to more than 8 dollars a bushel, which damaged livestock producers who purchase
corn for feed. By August 2012, more than 150 members of Congress were supporting a request to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to waive the RFS mandate for ethanol production. The EPA decided to keep the mandate in place, since for the moment blenders could meet the requirement by using credits saved up from having exceeded mandate levels in previous years. The story became more complicated in 2013, when a federal appeals court threw out the part of the RFS that had mandated blenders to use woody crops and wastes as advanced “second generation” feedstocks, a decision that increased the attraction of using imported sugar-based ethanol from Brazil to meet the advanced feedstock requirements, not an outcome the original authors of the mandate would have desired.
How do farm subsidies shape international agricultural trade? The farm subsidies of rich countries have long distorted both production and trade. They cause too much food to be produced in regions not well suited to farming, such as alpine countries in Europe, or desert lands in the American Southwest, or the municipal suburbs of Japan, and too little in the developing countries of the tropics where agricultural potential is often far greater. Farm subsidies in the United States, Europe, and Japan also tend to take market shares away from other rich countries with more advantaged farming assets, such as Australia or New Zealand. Sugar markets are one example. Because of the guarantees of high sugar prices still being provided through import restrictions in both Europe and the United States, too much of the world’s sugar production comes from the growing of sugar beets inside these two markets rather than from sugarcane in the Caribbean, Brazil, or tropical Africa. D. Gale Johnson, a respected agricultural economist, once calculated that because of protectionist farm subsidy policies at least 40 percent of the world’s sugar crop was being grown in the wrong place.
The Politics of Farm Subsidies and Trade
When international prices are trending downward, as they were prior to 2005, these distortions impose measurable hardships on farmers in the developing world. In 2002, the Brazilian government raised a formal complaint against American cotton subsidies, showing that without those subsidies production in the United States would have been 29 percent lower, cotton exports from the United States would have been 41 percent lower, and international cotton prices for Brazilian producers would have been 13 percent higher. This would have brought benefits not only to Brazil but also to small cotton farmers in West Africa, many of whom live on less than $1 a day. According to calculations commissioned by Oxfam America, if United States cotton programs had been eliminated in 2005, and if the international price of cotton had consequently increased by 6–14 percent, eight very poor countries in West Africa would have been able to earn an additional $191 million each year in foreign exchange from their cotton exports, and household income in these countries would have increased by 2.3 to 5.7 percent.
Has the WTO been able to discipline farm subsidies? One purpose of the World Trade Organization (WTO) has been to reduce trade distortions caused by subsidies, yet successive rounds of multilateral trade negotiations in the WTO (and within its predecessor organization, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, or GATT) have made only modest progress in achieving this goal. Agricultural tariffs around the world still average 62 percent, compared to just 4 percent for manufactured goods. Agricultural tariffs in the United States average 12 percent, in the EU 30 percent, and in Japan 50 percent. In many developing countries, tariffs are even higher. In India, for example, the average bound tariff on agricultural goods is 114 percent. Barriers to international agricultural trade are difficult to bring down in rich countries because without those barriers
domestic farm support policies would be far more expensive for governments to operate. In Europe and Japan, it is politically easy to transfer income to farmers through trade restrictions at the border because these do not cost anything in budget terms (they may actually earn tariff revenue for the government) and they push costs onto foreign producers (who complain, but cannot vote). In poor countries, meanwhile, barriers to agricultural trade are hard to bring down because they frequently reflect a political desire for “self-sufficiency” in staple food supplies. Even when their own people are not well fed, and even when prices on the world market may be lower than the domestic price, governments in many developing countries have traditionally preferred not to import staple foods. Within the WTO, a distinction has emerged between subsidies to farmers that distort production (and hence trade) versus those that do not. The most recent WTO strategy has been for governments to negotiate limits on trade-distorting subsidies only, while providing unlimited cash subsidies to farmers so long as those payments are “decoupled” from any incentive to produce more. Payments that supposedly do not incentivize new production are placed in a “Green Box,” while policies that clearly distort production are placed either in a “Red Box” (they are banned) or in an “Amber Box” (where they are allowed, but only up to a certain dollar value). Following this approach in the Uruguay Round of WTO negotiations that ended in 1993, the United States and Europe were able to agree to reduce their Amber Box supports by 20 percent from a 1986 baseline. Following this agreement, both the United States and the EU voluntarily decoupled larger portions of their farm subsidy budgets, so they could be moved into the Green Box and increased without WTO restriction. Even with this Green Box loophole in place (plus a second, more dubious loophole known as the Blue Box), it proved impossible after 2001 to reach a follow-up agricultural agreement in the next round of WTO negotiations. This Doha Round was suspended without a result in the summer
The Politics of Farm Subsidies and Trade
of 2008. It should have been much easier by 2008 to reach an international agreement to lower trade-distorting farm subsidies, since much higher international food prices were then making the subsidies less essential as a tool for supporting domestic farm income. In the Doha negotiations the U.S. Trade Representative offered to accept a much lower cap on U.S. Amber Box subsidies, just $14.5 billion. This did not alarm farmers because due to high prices actual trade distorting subsidies had fallen to a level well below that figure. The talks nonetheless collapsed without a result when some developing countries—including both China and India—said no. They had concluded that the new access they might gain to agricultural markets in the United States and the European Union would not be enough to justify the new concessions they were being asked to make in opening their own domestic markets for both agricultural and manufacturing goods. Agreements in the World Trade Organization must be reached on a “consensus” basis, making them more difficult to reach as the number of major economic powers has increased. The emergence of Brazil, India, and China as stronger economic powers in recent years has made the task of reaching a multilateral consensus on agriculture in the WTO far more daunting.
Do trade agreements like NAFTA hurt farmers in countries like Mexico? When global negotiations in the WTO stall, the United States often attempts to open markets abroad through regional or bilateral trade agreements. In his 2013 State of the Union address, President Obama even signaled a desire to negotiate a Transatlantic Free-Trade Agreement (TAFTA), parallel to a possible Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade agreement. Securing European Union (EU) or Japanese support for this approach might require a “carve out” provision for agriculture to limit or perhaps even exclude reductions in farm subsidies.
One regional free trade agreement that did not carve out agriculture was the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), completed in 1993. This agreement triggered a significant phase-out of agricultural import barriers between the United States and Mexico. For this reason NAFTA was strongly opposed by anti-globalization advocacy groups who argue that the agreement hurt poor corn farmers in Mexico by exposing them to a flood of cheap imports of corn from subsidized growers in the United States. This is offered as one reason so many Mexican farmers have left the land and moved into urban slums. Reviewing actual experience since 1993, Mexico did import much more corn from the United States after NAFTA, but this was mostly yellow corn for animal feed to support expanding hog and poultry production, not the white corn for tortillas grown by poor farmers in Mexico. Corn production inside Mexico itself actually continued to increase, despite higher imports, in part because commercial corn growers in Mexico were also getting subsidies (37 percent of the income of Mexican corn growers came from government supports in 2002, compared to 26 percent in the United States). A review of academic studies done by the World Bank in 2004 concluded that the decline of Mexican white corn prices was actually a long-term trend that preceded NAFTA. This study found that the U.S.-Mexico producer price differential for maize did not change significantly after NAFTA came into effect in 1994. Lowering import restrictions for basic food staples can nonetheless be a risky policy for some developing countries. Haiti was self-sufficient in rice in the 1970s and 1980s, but in the 1990s it reduced its import tariffs from 50 percent to just 3 percent, allowing less expensive rice from the United States to flood in. Eventually, Haiti was importing 80 percent of its rice and, partly because of lower prices, domestic production was stagnant. Then came the international price spike of 2008, which brought a tripling of the import price, followed by riots in the streets of Port-au-Prince. In 2010, former U.S. president
The Politics of Farm Subsidies and Trade
Bill Clinton, who was from the rice-growing state of Arkansas, apologized for having supported a set of subsidy and trade policies that helped big farmers in the United States while undercutting small rice producers in Haiti, calling this a “devil’s bargain.”
9 FARMING, THE ENVIRONMENT, CLIMATE CHANGE, AND WATER
Does agriculture always damage the environment? From the perspective of deep ecology, all forms of agriculture damage the natural environment. When our early ancestors went from hunting and gathering to planting crops and grazing animals, they cut forests and redirected waterways. Wild plants and animals were domesticated, then progressively modified through selective breeding. If protecting nature is the central goal, these actions must be considered damage. Using a more utilitarian and socially centered perspective, however, changes to nature caused by farming would be viewed as damage only if they brought long-term costs to human society that exceed the short-term food production gain. Even if we use this more forgiving definition, many kinds of farming today do damage the environment. It is useful to classify the environmental damage done by farming according to where it takes place: on the farm versus off the farm. Farmers themselves will suffer most from damage on the farm, while it is mostly non-farmers who suffer if the damage is off the farm and downstream. In an important way, politics sets the balance between these two kinds of damage. Farmers in poor countries lack political power, so they will
Farming and the Environment
often find themselves trapped into using practices that damage their own farm resource base, and hence their own livelihood. Farmers in rich countries have considerable organized political power, so they will find it easier both to protect their own resource base and to get away with actions that pollute air and water downstream from farms, to the disadvantage of non-farmers. In the poorest developing countries, most of the environmental damage done by agriculture takes place on the farm itself. Prime examples include the exhaustion of soil nutrients due to shortened fallow times, waterlogging of soils due to mismanaged irrigation, or the “desertification” of rangeland caused by excessive animal grazing. By harming the agricultural resource base itself, this sort of damage lowers productivity and helps keep farmers poor. Research presented at an Africa Fertilizer Summit in 2006 revealed that the shortening of fallow times in Africa was removing nitrogen from the soil at an average annual rate of 22–26 kilograms per hectare, far too much to be offset by current rates of fertilizer application, which average only 9 kilograms per hectare. The result of this “soil mining” was a deficit in soil nutrients that causes annual crop losses estimated at between $1 billion and $3 billion. Nor is this the end of the problem. As cultivated soils become exhausted, farmers will extend cropping onto new lands, cutting more trees and destroying more wildlife habitat. According to the World Resources Institute, land clearing for the expansion of unsustainable low-yield farming has caused roughly 70 percent of all deforestation in Africa. In wealthy industrial societies, by contrast, environmental damage from farming usually results from too much input use rather than too little, and those who suffer most are usually not farmers. For example, excessive nitrogen fertilizer use leads to nitrate runoff and eutrophication of streams and ponds. In Europe, excess nitrates in water are a downstream health hazard (“blue baby syndrome”). In the United States, excessive nitrogen fertilizer use on farms in the Mississippi River
watershed contributes to an environmental calamity both within that watershed and also in the Gulf of Mexico, where a 6,000-square-mile “dead zone” is no longer able to support aquatic life. In the Florida Everglades, nitrogen and phosphorous runoff from sugarcane production has produced cattail growth so thick as to replace the native sawgrass, ruining the habitat of wading birds like storks, and then sucking oxygen from the water when the cattails die and decompose, which kills the fish. Exploitation of river water for crop irrigation can harm migratory fish species, such as salmon, which are unable to move upstream through the narrow passages and turbines of dams. Concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), designed to cut livestock industry costs by fattening thousands of animals for slaughter all within one crowded facility, often pollute both the air and water with toxic effluents, creating health risks for non-farming human populations living nearby. The poultry industry in just a single county in Delaware produces 200 million birds a year, and mishandled chicken waste has been a major source of eutrophication in the Chesapeake Bay.
What kind of farming is environmentally sustainable? Environmental activists and agricultural scientists answer this question in dramatically different ways. Environmentalists usually prefer small-scale diversified farming systems that rely on fewer inputs purchased off the farm, and on systems that imitate nature rather than trying to engineer or dominate nature. Agricultural scientists tend to assume that there will be less harm done to nature overall by moving toward specialized high-yield farming systems employing the latest technology, because increasing crop yields on lands already farmed will allow more of the remaining land to be saved for nature. While environmentalists invoke the damage done by modern farming, agricultural scientists invoke the greater damage that
Farming and the Environment
would be done if the same volume of production had to come from low-yield farming systems. The environmentalist side of this argument was most eloquently presented in 1962 in Rachel Carson’s landmark book, Silent Spring, which exposed the damage done by chemical pesticides both to human health and to wild animal species (including songbirds, hence the title). Carson’s book led to a legal ban on the agricultural use of DDT in the United States and also to the formation of a broad and powerful environmental movement, which in 1970 secured passage of the National Environmental Protection Act, creating America’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Carson’s thinking also reinforced a continuing quest among environmentalists for an alternative to high-input, high-yield farming. One early pioneer in this search for “alternative” models of farming was Wes Jackson, who founded a Land Institute in Kansas in 1976, to promote farming based on polycultures of perennial crops rather than monocultures of annual crops. This approach did not prove to be a commercial success, but it was Jackson, in 1980, who began employing the term “sustainable agriculture” to describe his objectives. Responding to political interest in alternative farming systems, the Department of Agriculture in 1985 finally initiated a program to promote what it called low-impact sustainable agriculture, or LISA. Conventional commercial farmers panned it as “low income sustainable agriculture,” but the idea gained traction with non-farming urban populations and with a younger cohort of countercultural farmers who had links to a back-to-the-land movement from the 1960s. High-input farming did cause environmental damage in America during the second half of the twentieth century, but the earlier style of low-input farming had also been damaging. It was an extension of low-yield wheat farming into the southern plains of Kansas, Oklahoma, and the Texas panhandle in the 1920s, before synthetic chemical fertilizers or pesticides were in wide use, that produced America’s single greatest
environmental disaster until that time, a drought-induced loss of topsoil that ruined farmlands across an area as big as the state of Pennsylvania, turning it into a “dust bowl.” Roughly 400,000 farmers fled the dust bowl, many of them moving to California to work as migrants picking tomatoes and peas, a flow of environmental refugees unmatched in scale until Hurricane Katrina subsequently flooded out the population of New Orleans in 2005. Following Carson’s book, while environmentalists were concluding that chemical use to increase crop yields was inherently dangerous, commercial farmers and agricultural scientists sought instead to develop new chemicals that were less harmful and ways to apply them with greater precision to reduce runoff. Environmental advocates were not impressed with this “technical fix” approach; they wanted a more complete move away from highly specialized, highly capitalized “industrial” farming. Their views were later supported by a 2008 International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), which warned that using still more modern science to “increase yields and productivity” might do even more environmental damage. Growing numbers of popular writers have embraced this view. In an apocalyptic 2008 book titled The End of Food, journalist Paul Roberts argued that the world’s large-scale, hyperefficient industrialized food production systems were heading toward an inevitable collapse because of the damage they had been doing to soils, water systems, and other “natural infrastructure.” Alternative food advocate Michael Pollan wrote in 2008 that “the era of cheap and abundant food appears to be drawing to a close.” In 2013, New York Times food columnist Mark Bittman described America’s “hyper-industrial” agricultural system as having poisoned land and water, wasted energy, and made a major contribution to climate change. “We must figure out a way to un-invent this food system,” said Bittman. Despite such popular sentiments, a preponderance of agricultural scientists and economists do not reject today’s
Farming and the Environment
large-scale, specialized, and highly capitalized farming systems as unsustainable. In fact, they view these systems as the best means available to contain environmental damage from farming.
What is low-impact or “precision” farming? Commercial farming today has moved well beyond the indiscriminate chemical use practices that Rachel Carson properly criticized in 1962. Many of the early insecticides then in use have now been banned and replaced by chemicals that are less persistent in the environment and effective when applied in lower volume. Commercial farmers are always looking for ways to cut back on unnecessary chemical and fuel use so as to reduce costs, and by the end of the twentieth century they had found a number of technical means to do so. These new methods came to be labeled “precision” farming. Beginning in the 1970s and 1980s, during an interlude of extremely high energy prices, farmers in the United States first learned to save diesel fuel by planting seeds in unplowed fields—a “no-till” approach to farming that also reduced erosion, conserved soil moisture, and sequestered carbon. They also switched from flood irrigation to less wasteful centerpivot sprays, or to laser-leveled fields with zero runoff, and to even more precise drip irrigation systems. Then, in the 1990s, they began using Global Positioning Systems (GPS) to auto-steer tractors in perfectly straight lines with zero overlap (saving more diesel fuel), plus soil-mapping and onboard computer systems to match chemical applications of fertilizer or lime more precisely to location-specific needs. The GPS told them exactly where they were in a field to within one square meter, and with variable rate application machinery they could deliver precisely the amount of water or fertilizer required in that part of the field. Infrared sensors can be used to detect the greenness of a crop, telling a farmer exactly how much more (or less) fertilizer might be needed. To minimize nitrogen runoff,
fertilizer can also be inserted into the soil in much smaller total quantities at exactly the depth of the plant roots, and in perfect rows exactly where the seeds will be planted. Also in the 1990s, farmers in the United States began planting genetically engineered soybean, corn, and cotton seeds that made it possible to control weeds without mechanical tillage and to control insects without as many chemical sprays. Farmers took up these more precise methods to save money on chemicals, water, and diesel fuel, but the side result was a clear benefit to the environment. American agricultural output has increased by 40 percent since the early 1980s, but chemical fertilizer use, insecticide use, and herbicide use have all declined in absolute terms. Energy use, land use, and water use have declined most conspicuously on a per bushel of production basis. Department of Agriculture surveys reveal that between 1980 and 2011, energy use per bushel of corn production fell 43 percent. Land use per bushel fell 30 percent. Soil erosion per bushel fell 67 percent. Irrigation water use per bushel fell 53 percent. And greenhouse gas emissions per bushel fell 36 percent. The United States has not been alone in making this technical move in commercial farming toward reduced input use per bushel of production. In 2008 the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris published an important review of the “environmental performance of agriculture” in the 30 most advanced industrial countries of the world (those with the most highly capitalized farming systems). The new data showed that between 1990 and 2004, total food production in these countries increased in volume by 5 percent from an already high level, yet adverse environmental impacts had diminished in nearly every category. The area of land taken up by agriculture declined 4 percent. Soil erosion from both wind and water was reduced. Water use on irrigated lands declined by 9 percent. Energy use on the farm increased at only one-sixth the rate of energy use in the rest of the economy. Gross greenhouse gas emissions from farming
Farming and the Environment
fell by 3 percent. Herbicide and insecticide spraying declined by 5 percent. Excessive nitrogen fertilizer use declined by 17 percent. Biodiversity also improved, as increased numbers of crop varieties and livestock breeds came into use. True believers in the promise of precision farming expect there will be no end to the impact-reducing gains that can be achieved. Their long-term vision includes small solar-powered robots working farm fields in groups, hoeing weeds and picking off bugs 24 hours a day without any polluting chemicals or fossil fuels at all, then harvesting the crop with almost no human supervision required. Even if this fantasy became possible, most environmental advocates would refuse to see it as progress. They generally do not endorse modern precision farming because it favors highly capitalized industrial-scale operations, something they reject on principle. The small, diversified farms they favor cannot make use of the costly and specialized machinery that is a key component to most modern precision farming. In addition, environmental advocates instinctively reject the notion that a biological system such as a farm can be sustainably and safely precision-engineered through science. They believe, with Rachel Carson, that nature will always find a way to strike back against human arrogance of this kind.
Do fragile lands, population growth, and poverty make farming unsustainable? These are popular explanations for environmental damage from farming, but institutional arrangements are usually more important. The concept of “fragile” land can be misleading. It is true that many poor countries farm on sloping lands or irregular lands with thin and badly weathered soils, all subject to the damaging extremes of heat, flood, and drought. In many tropical countries, soil nutrients leach away immediately when trees are cut, leaving a baked and barren landscape on which only
weeds will grow. Under proper management, however, these less productive tropical lands can be improved dramatically and farmed sustainably. When farmed with adequate fallow time, or limed to the correct acidity, or terraced and mulched to capture and keep more moisture on leveled soil, or planted to several different crops at the same time (intercropped) to reduce vulnerability to pests, the productive potential of such less-favored lands can be sustainably increased. Some argue that poverty itself is a cause of environmental damage in farming, because poor farmers who live from hand to mouth cannot afford to wait for resource-protecting investments to pay off. Yet many poor farming communities do invest to protect their resources, if the political and institutional circumstances are right. They are more than willing to build and maintain terraces, plant trees, and protect rangelands from overgrazing when effective “common property resource” (CPR) systems are allowed to operate at the local or village level. These informal systems protect local forests, streams, ponds, and grazing lands by allocating equitable use to insiders while denying access to outsiders. Such systems are good at blocking the “tragedy of the commons,” a pattern of environmental destruction that arises in systems of open access (Garrett Hardin, the influential ecologist who named this danger in 1968, should have called it the “tragedy of open access”). Within a well-managed commons systems, even poor communities can avoid environmental tragedies. Commons systems are vulnerable to breakdown, however, if powerful outside institutions, such as colonial administrators, international companies, forestry department bureaucrats, megaproject engineers, government land-titling agencies, or centralized irrigation authorities, move in to take control away from local community leaders. Local farmers who sense that they are about to lose control of their resource base will at that point stop making investments in resource protection. They will begin using up the resource base as fast as they can— cutting the trees, plowing up terraces, over-grazing the range,
Farming and the Environment
over-fishing the ponds—before the outsiders take it away. Poor farmers who have control as well as access can be conserving farmers; if control is taken away, they will use their access to exploit rather than conserve. Well-functioning common property systems in poor countries can also break down if local leaders become corrupt, or due to excess population growth. If population density increases beyond a certain point, the value per person of protecting the resource will decline so much for insiders as to demotivate efforts at protection, just when more outsiders will be attempting to gain access. At this point, effective resource protection can require switching to an individual private property system, one that restores individual payoffs for resourceprotecting actions while handing the problem of excluding outsiders over to the police. If this transition to individual land ownership is made successfully, a further increase in population density need not threaten the resource base at all. In fact, greater population density makes affordable greater labor investment in protecting the land (mulching, terracing, etc.) and increases the affordability of productivity-enhancing investments in rural roads, power, and irrigation. One example from Africa is the experience of Machakos District in Kenya, where farmers in this densely settled semi-arid area avoided serious damage to their marginal soil endowments even as population increased. This occurred thanks to clearly titled land ownership that motivated heavier labor investments in terracing systems, use of more fertilizer, and a shift to highervalue crops for sale in nearby urban markets.
Do cash crops and export crops cause environmental harm? Shifting from food crop production to a more specialized cash crop production for export is frequently cited as a cause of both economic dependency and environmental harm. There are some cases that support this generalization, for example in Central America in the 1960s and 1970s, when landlords
introduced chemical-intensive cotton production and evicted traditional peasants growing maize and beans. Yet the cash crop versus food crop dichotomy is usually misleading, because a number of food crops in the developing world are at the same time cash crops (for example, rice in Asia), and many cash export crops (such as cocoa in West Africa) are grown by small farmers in the same fields with food crops, in an environmentally friendly intercropping system. Cash crops for export are not inherently less rewarding for small farmers to grow, or more damaging to the environment. Exported cash crops are often tree crops or perennials that provide better land cover and more stable root structures than annual food crops. In Africa, some kinds of perennial export crops—such as tea or coffee, planted along the contour of sloping lands, or oil palm planted in low-lying areas—can protect the soil much better than food crops requiring annual tillage, such as maize. At least a partial switch to higher-value cash crops helps farm families with limited land and labor earn the income they need to pay for their children’s school expenses. Farmers will typically switch part of their land to cash crop production, then use some of the income to purchase improved seeds and fertilizer, allowing a simultaneous boost in food crop production on the rest of their land.
Do farm subsidies promote environmental damage in agriculture? Yes. Most subsidy policies work by giving farmers artificially high prices for their products, which induces them to use excessive fertilizers, pesticides, and irrigation water in an effort to boost crop yields as high as possible. In Korea, where rice farmers are heavily protected (with a guaranteed price roughly five times the world market price) pesticide use is extremely high, at 12.8 kilograms per hectare. In France, where farmers have less price protection, pesticide use is less than half as high, at 4.5 kilograms per hectare. In the United States, where there is even less protection, pesticide use is only 2.3 kilograms per
Farming and the Environment
hectare. And in Senegal, where farmers get almost no protection at all, pesticide use averages only 0.1 kilograms per hectare. In most of Africa, farmers are often taxed rather than subsidized (a symptom of their political weakness), which frequently results in too little chemical use rather than too much. Fertilizer use in most of Africa is insufficient for replacing the soil nutrients taken up by crops. When subsidies to farmers go up, input use often goes up in lock-step. Between 1970 and 1990 in Thailand, as income protections for farmers increased, fertilizer use per hectare increased nearly sevenfold. In Indonesia in the 1980s, where the government subsidized fertilizer purchases directly by as much as 68 percent, chemical use increased 77 percent over one five-year period. In India, when the government began to subsidize 86 percent of the electric bill for pumping irrigation water in the Punjab, groundwater tables began dropping at an unsustainable rate of about 0.8 meters a year. In rich countries, farmers are not only powerful enough politically to demand the subsidies that encourage excessive input use, they are also powerful enough to avoid being held accountable for the resulting downstream environmental damage. Because of farm lobby strength, the air and water pollution that emanates from farms in rich countries is regulated far less than pollution from other industries. In the United States, the agricultural sector is significantly exempt from the regulatory structures of both the original Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act, because pollution from farms does not come from a “point source.” Despite the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, Congress does not regulate excess nitrogen runoff from farms and does not tax farm fertilizer use. Instead, it has created voluntary programs that pay farmers to take land (temporarily) out of production, or to cultivate their land in ways that reduce runoff. In 2010, these incentive-based, voluntary conservation programs operated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) cost taxpayers $5.5 billion. Instead of using a “polluter pays”
principle, the government actually pays the polluter. Even in extreme cases such as chemical pollution in the Florida Everglades from heavily subsidized sugar farming, strong regulations are routinely blocked by industry. In 1996, when Vice President Al Gore proposed taxing sugar growers to finance an Everglades clean-up project, a direct phone call from a Florida sugar baron to President Bill Clinton resulted in the tax proposal being set aside. A more recent example of the power of U.S. agriculture to resist environmental regulation can be seen in the case of climate change policy. In 2009, when the House of Representatives passed the Waxman-Markey bill to create a cap-and-trade system to limit greenhouse gas emissions, the entire agricultural sector was left “uncapped.” Instead of being subject to caps under this bill, farmers would have been entitled to profit by selling “offsets” to industries in sectors that were capped. The offset would be based on a voluntary reduction in emissions, or an increased sequestering of carbon—things a farmer might be doing anyway. One of the few environmental policy instruments strong enough to resist the farm lobby in the United States has been the 1973 Endangered Species Act. For example, in 2008, a lawsuit filed under that act by the Natural Resources Defense Council forced the Bush administration’s Fish and Wildlife Service to divert more than 150 billion gallons of water away from irrigated farming in the San Joaquin Valley, in California, so as to protect the delta smelt, an endangered 3-inch bait fish. Environmentalists know that their best chance, in a battle against farmers, is usually to move the action out of Congress and into the courts.
How will climate change affect food production? Climate change will affect food production in complex ways, and in different ways at different latitudes. In the tropics higher temperatures will damage farming, since some crops
Farming and the Environment
are already being grown near the upper range of their biological heat tolerance, but in some higher temperate zone regions warmer weather will mean longer growing seasons, and perhaps the chance to add a second seasonal crop. Average rainfall and rainfall variability will change as well, in ways far more difficult to predict. A warming earth will be, on average, a wetter earth, due to accelerated ocean evaporation leading to increased cloud formation, and this can be good for farming. Other things being equal, increased carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere will also help farming, since plants need to take in CO2. This is known as the carbon fertilization effect. But increased atmospheric ozone, another greenhouse gas, can slow plant growth. In North America, longer growing seasons at upper latitudes, more rainfall overall, and greater carbon fertilization may actually provide net benefits to farming. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), crop yields in North America are expected to increase by 5–20 percent during the first several decades of the twenty-first century, due to climate change. At the same time, these gains will be uneven across the region, and weather variations are likely to be more extreme. Experts disagree on whether the 2012 summer drought in the United States was linked to long-term climate change or to short-term factors such as a cyclical La Niña effect. The impacts of climate change on farming in the developing world are likely to be more damaging. One 2009 projection done by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) was based on a linked computer model that incorporated both a food supply-and-demand component and a biological crop growth component, one that captured yield changes driven by temperature changes within 281 different spatial regions around the world. The temperature changes expected within these spatial regions, out to the year 2050, were calculated based on modeled scenarios generated from the IPCC’s 2007 4th Assessment Report. The results of this
exercise were alarming. Rice production in the developing world in 2050 was expected to be 14 percent lower with climate change compared to without, and wheat production in the developing world was expected to be 34 percent lower due to climate change. In South Asia, specifically, wheat production was projected to be 49 percent lower in a 2050 world with climate change, compared to a world without climate change. When IFPRI then put these projected production impacts into its economic model, it estimated the higher food prices these climate effects would generate and concluded that there would be a 23 percent increase in the numbers of malnourished children expected in 2050 in a world with climate change, compared to a world without. Two kinds of policy response are available to this threat. One would be “prevention,” in the form of a redoubled effort to slow climate change, limiting any further temperature rise to no more than 2 degrees Centigrade, by somehow keeping atmospheric concentrations of CO2 from exceeding 450 parts per million. This, however, would require a sharp downward adjustment in current fossil fuel consumption trends for countries such as China and India, as well as the United States and Europe. Such a response is politically unlikely, because it would imply much slower economic growth, at least until the costs of wind and solar power come down. A second option, favored by IFPRI, is to recognize the high probability of future climate change and to help developing countries adapt their farming systems by making larger investments in irrigation expansion and efficiency, rural roads, and agricultural research. If an added $7 billion were properly spent every year for such purposes, the adverse impacts of climate change on food production might be offset. This is a small amount of money relative to the budgets of today’s major governments (the United States spends 100 times this amount on the Defense Department every year), yet political support for spending this money in the developing world is difficult to mobilize.
Farming and the Environment
Does agriculture contribute to climate change? Agriculture globally is a major contributor to climate change. The expansion of crop farming releases C02 into the atmosphere when trees are cut to clear land, and also when the soil is disturbed. Heat-trapping gases are also released when fuel is burned to manufacture fertilizer, or to power farm machinery, and when rice is grown in flooded paddy fields, which give off methane gas, more than 20 times as powerful in trapping heat as CO2. Livestock production is an even more potent source of greenhouse gas emissions, because of the clearing of lands for pasture, and also because so much crop farming today goes for animal feed purposes. Moreover, the animals themselves are a source of greenhouse gas emissions, principally in the form of methane released from the digestive processes of ruminant animals (cattle, goats, sheep) that depend on microbial fermentation of fibrous grasses and feeds, and also from animal manure, which emits gases such as methane, nitrous oxide, ammonia, and carbon dioxide. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported in 2007 that the agricultural sector overall was the source of 10–12 percent of total global anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases. If we add emissions from fertilizer production, food transport, refrigeration, consumer practices, and waste management, somewhere between one-fifth and one-third of all greenhouse gases emitted by people come from the food and farming sector, according to a 2012 analysis from the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture, and Food Security. In the United States specifically, if only on-farm emissions are considered, agriculture accounts for somewhere between 7 and 8 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions. Calculations of this sort are contentious and sometimes flawed. For example, in 2006, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) released a report titled Livestock’s Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options, which estimated that livestock production worldwide was responsible all by itself for 18 percent of all human-induced
greenhouse gas emissions, “a bigger share than that of transport.” In generating this high percentage, the FAO followed a life cycle analysis approach that considered not just greenhouse gases from the animals themselves—including methane and nitrous oxide from the digestive systems and manure of the animals—but also emissions from a large number of associated activities such as land-use changes (converting forest to pasture), the burning of fossil fuels to produce animal feed, plus emissions from animal processing and transport. The surprising findings of the report prompted an animal welfare organization, PETA, to chide former vice president Al Gore for having failed to mention reduced meat consumption as one powerful way to prevent climate change. It later came to light that this 2006 study was an exaggerated estimate, because it had compared a full life cycle analysis of the livestock industry to only a partial life cycle analysis of other sectors. For example, in the transport sector it counted greenhouse gas emissions from the gasoline burned by cars, but not the CO2 emitted from factories that assembled the cars, or from the factories that manufactured the steel, glass, plastic, and rubber from which the cars were made. Authors of the FAO report conceded this flaw, but livestock industry critics continued to reference the study, and they even produced a dubious study of their own claiming that livestock were actually responsible for 51 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. One useful message from the original FAO study was that livestock systems based on extensive grazing are just as prone to produce greenhouse gas emissions as systems based on confined feeding. Cattle raised exclusively on grass take far longer to reach a market weight than cattle finished in a confined system, meaning more months or years of digestive methane and nitrous oxide emissions per pound of meat. As for confined systems (concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs), they generate less methane and nitrous oxide per pound of meat, but usually much more CO2, because of the diesel fuel burned in growing the feed grain.
Farming and the Environment
Returning to a more traditional farm production system may seem a tempting way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but given today’s much greater market demand for food, including animal products like meat, traditional systems would actually result in an increase in emissions. In 2010, a team of scientists at Stanford estimated that if world food consumption in 2005 had to be satisfied with the average crop yields of 1961, the total area of cropland under production worldwide would have to more than double, a damaging change in land use that would release sequestered carbon from forests and soils and increase global greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture roughly fivefold. This same study then asked how actual greenhouse gas emissions in 2005 would have changed if the world returned not only to 1961 crop yields, but also to 1961 per capita consumption levels. Moving back to a 1961 diet (one that depended far less on meat consumption) would reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but only enough to offset about half the damage done by moving back to the lower 1961 crop yields. The lesson from this study was that the worst possible situation for climate change would be a world that retains the current level of meat consumption but moves back to 1961 (pre-green revolution) crop yields.
Is the world running out of water to irrigate crops? For farmers everywhere, water is destiny. Producing one kilogram of wheat requires the use of about 1,000 liters of water, and paddy rice requires twice this amount. The earth’s freshwater supply is not diminishing overall, since it is renewed every time it rains, and about 60 percent of farm production in the developing world is still based on rainfall alone. Yet in regions where rainfall is uncertain or inadequate, irrigation techniques that bring freshwater from surface streams or from underground aquifers to the roots of crops are essential. Irrigated farming is the most reliable and often the most productive kind of farming; irrigated land makes up about
one-fifth of total arable area in the developing world, yet it provides two-fifths of all crops harvested and close to threefifths of cereal production. Total irrigated land area has doubled over the past 50 years, and globally today about 20 percent of all cultivated land is under irrigation. Roughly 70 percent of all the water we take from aquifers, streams, and lakes now goes into agriculture. Because the most promising sites for irrigation were developed long ago, the United Nations FAO expects irrigated area to grow more slowly in the years ahead, by only 6 percent between 2009 and 2050. This may not be enough to keep pace with future production requirements. Expanding the use of irrigation water for agriculture will be difficult for several reasons. First will be an unavoidable increase in competition for freshwater from urban users, but second will be the needless degradation of some past irrigation sites. Poor drainage of irrigated lands has left some lands waterlogged or saline. Basins of dams have silted up, reducing capacity. In many large rivers, excessive withdrawals have left as little as 5 percent of the former water volume instream, and some rivers no longer reach the sea year-round. Nearly 40 percent of irrigated area now depends primarily on groundwater, yet aquifer depletion is a growing threat because rates of pumping have proved nearly impossible to regulate. According to one 2012 estimate published in Nature, roughly 1.7 billion people now live in areas where groundwater resources or groundwater-dependent ecosystems are under threat.
What can be done to improve water management in farming? The first and most important step is to reduce water waste. The technical means available include shifting from flood irrigation to more precise spray-and-drip systems, leveling fields to eliminate runoff, and lining irrigation canals to reduce seepage. The policy steps needed include ending subsidies for
Farming and the Environment
cheap electricity that encourage excessive pumping (in India, for example), establishing water users’ associations to regulate access, and creating water markets based on tradeable water rights. Private water markets have saved farming in some dry parts of Australia. One example is the Murray-Darling Basin, where the Australian government in the 1990s shifted from building dams and subsidizing water to a policy that separated water rights from land rights. This allowed farmers with less need for water to sell their rights to farmers who needed more. Total water availability was falling in this basin, yet the income of farmers remained high, thanks to the operation of this water market. As water availability went down, the price of water went up, which encouraged growers of thirsty low-value crops such as rice to sell some of their water rights to growers of higher-value crops such as vegetables or grapes. The system allows willing buyers and willing sellers to make deals, which in the end allocate scarce water to its highest value use. Water trading systems for farmers also operate at the state level in the western part of the United States, in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and California. While reducing water waste in currently irrigated regions, it will be equally important in the years ahead to extend irrigation coverage to regions where rainfall alone does not allow crop farmers to prosper. In Africa today, only 4 percent of cultivated land is irrigated, and 41 percent of annual farm production comes from lands that are both hot and dry. Farmers on these dry lands are pushed back into poverty every time the rains fail. The irregular topography of much of Africa, plus poor rural road and power infrastructures, have discouraged investments in irrigation. Building dams also encounters opposition from environmental groups. Because so many non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are now opposed to dams, the World Bank has virtually stopped financing such projects in the developing world. NGOs tend to favor smallscale irrigation alternatives such as rainwater harvesting,
bucket irrigation, treadle and pedal pumps, and small earthen dams, yet these options are hard to scale up and they carry excessive labor costs in much of rural Africa. Citizens in today’s rich countries, who gained prosperity in part by building dams to develop 70 percent or more of their own hydroelectric potential, might wish to think twice about telling Africa—where only 3 percent of potential has so far been developed—that dams are a bad idea.
10 LIVESTOCK, MEAT, AND FISH
How are farm animals different from crops? In some respects, they are not so different. Human beings have eaten animals—including fish—from the beginning, and we have bred domesticated animals to serve our food purposes in much the way that we have bred crops. Moreover, market forces are pushing modern livestock production systems and modern crop production systems in roughly the same direction, toward increased specialization, automation, capital investment, and much larger scale. Consumer prices for animal products have consequently fallen over the long term, once again parallel to the long-term decline in crop prices. In at least three respects, however, farm animals are significantly different from farm crops. First, and most obviously, they require more intensive management at a much higher ethical standard, because unlike plants they move about when not confined and maintain complex social and emotional lives. Second, farm animals must themselves be given food, often in large amounts, making the food products we derive from animals more expensive. Third, farm animals produce manure, which is a valuable product for restoring soil nutrients if managed properly; if mismanaged, however, it becomes a human health hazard and a damaging source of water and air pollution.
Is meat consumption increasing, or not? Globally, meat consumption has been increasing at a rapid rate, tripling over the past 50 years. To sustain this higher consumption, herders and livestock producers around the world are now managing more than 26 billion animals at any one time, triple the 1970 number. The earth, in other words, is now supporting four times as many agricultural animals as people. The driving factor behind this global increase in raising animals for food has been personal income growth. As societies become more wealthy, people almost invariably use a part of the higher income to purchase more meat, milk, and eggs. In wealthy regions such as Europe and North America, average annual per capita meat consumption has reached as high as 83 kilograms, far more than in less wealthy regions such as Latin America (58 kilograms), East Asia and the Pacific (28 kilograms), or Sub-Saharan Africa (11 kilograms). In rich countries, meat consumption per person is no longer increasing, but in the transitional countries of Asia and Latin America it still has considerable room to grow, and even more in the poor countries of Africa. According to one projection by the International Food Policy Research Institute, between 2010 and 2050 per capita meat consumption in Latin America is likely to rise by 33 percent, in East Asia and the Pacific by 86 percent, and in Sub-Saharan Africa by 118 percent (from a much lower level). Rich countries are the big meat consumers today, but in the decades ahead nearly all of the increase in meat consumption will take place in the developing world. Most nutritionists endorse the consumption of some meat and dairy products (in addition to mother’s milk, of course) as a source of beneficial micronutrients such as iron, zinc, calcium, and vitamins A and B12. Most of these same micronutrients are also available from plant sources, but in a form less easily taken up by the human body. Animal products can be particularly valuable for children going through a critical phase of accelerated physical growth and brain development in the first two years of life, and also for women with higher
Livestock, Meat, and Fish
iron requirements in their reproductive years. At the same time, excessive consumption of meat and animal products is associated with a number of poor health outcomes, including a variety of cancers, heart diseases, and stroke. In urban China between 1982 and 2002, when meat and dairy products in the average diet increased from 11 percent by weight up to 25 percent, the prevalence of diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, and stroke all increased sharply as well. Meat consumption per capita has finally leveled off in today’s rich countries, and in the United States it has actually begun to decline, falling by 10 percent between 2004 and 2012. The reasons for this decline include the post-2007 economic recession, higher meat prices linked to higher animal feed costs (linked in turn to an increased use of corn for ethanol), growing health concerns within an aging generation of baby boomers, plus increased public awareness of the many environmental and animal welfare concerns linked to modern livestock production. This recent decline in meat consumption in the United States includes little in the way of a shift toward purely vegetarian diets. Small segments of the American public have always maintained vegetarian diets by abstaining completely from meat consumption, including poultry and seafood (but usually not eggs and dairy products). Currently a bit more than 3 percent of Americans identify themselves as vegetarians of this kind, which is up from roughly 1 percent four decades ago. A smaller share of these individuals even opt to consume no animal products at all, maintaining what is called a “vegan” diet. Particularly among health-conscious or countercultural younger people, vegetarian and vegan diets gain favor. Film stars ranging from Brad Pitt to Woody Harrelson have made it known that they are vegetarians, and in 2010 former president Bill Clinton followed his daughter’s lead and adopted a vegan diet (after getting two stents on top of quadruple bypass surgery), explaining that he wanted to live to be a grandfather.
Most of the recent reduction in meat consumption in the United States reflects neither strict vegetarianism or veganism, but simply an increased frequency of meatless meals or meals with less meat, particularly red meat. This trend has been promoted since 2003 by public health professionals through a Meatless Monday campaign, which in 2012 claimed to have a national participation rate of 18 percent. The original goal of the campaign was to cut saturated fat consumption in the United States by 15 percent, down to a USDA-recommended level. The only large nation in which full vegetarianism is widespread is India, where an estimated 31 percent of the population (mostly Hindus and Jains) are vegetarians. In Europe, vegetarians are most prevalent in Italy (10 percent of the population) and least prevalent in France (only 2 percent).
Is a vegetarian diet healthier? Dietary health requires a balance of nutrients, and for most people meat is a convenient part of this balance, but it is not strictly necessary. The Mayo Clinic confirms that even for growing children and adolescents vegetarian diets can be safe and healthy. Getting protein is not a problem, since vegetarians who are not vegans can get animal protein from milk and eggs, and even vegans can get abundant protein from beans, legumes, and nuts. Calcium is not a problem for vegetarians who consume dairy products, and vegans can get calcium from green vegetables or from products fortified with calcium, such as soymilks, cereals, and juices. Vegans must take special care to get vitamins D and B12; the latter in particular may require seeking out fortified foods or supplements. It can be more convenient to secure the needed balance of nutrients from a less restrictive non-vegetarian diet, but nonvegetarians can of course lapse into imbalances of other kinds. Non-vegetarian diets too often include inadequate helpings of fruits and vegetables, too much red meat, too many processed meats like bacon, sausage, and salami (containing
Livestock, Meat, and Fish
risk-inducing nitrites as preservatives), and too many overcooked charred meats that carry cancer risks. When it comes to health, what matters most about meat is the quantity consumed and the way in which it is processed or cooked, not the fact that it is meat. One 2005 study from the German Cancer Research Center compared health-conscious meat eaters to vegetarians and found no difference in mortality rates. In some societies, purely vegetarian diets are simply not an option. On drylands in Africa where there is not enough water for vegetable crops, communities could not be sustained without cattle, sheep, and goats, which are ruminant animals with an extra stomach, allowing them to thrive on grasses that people cannot digest, converting those grasses into meat and milk for people. Likewise in arctic regions, human societies could not survive if they did not eat meat from fish and animals. Even in agricultural societies where producing vegetable food is an option, the sale of meat or milk from animals is often an essential income source for poor people who lack access to cropland.
If people in rich countries ate less meat, would hunger be reduced in poor countries? Yes, but only by a small amount. If meat consumption declined, international meat and animal feed prices would also decline, but this would matter little for the vast proportion of hungry people, because they do not consume much that comes from the world market, and particularly not meat or animal feed. What these poor people need is more income to purchase rice, white maize, sorghum, millet, yams, cassava, or banana in their own local markets, not a lower international price for meat and feed. Most of the effects of lower meat consumption in rich countries would be confined to those same rich countries. Fewer cattle would be grazed on rangelands in Texas or Australia, but since these lands are too dry for growing crops, they would simply go unused. Less corn and soy would be
produced for animal feed, and this would free up some more land for wheat and rice production, but the impact on international wheat and rice prices would be small. The International Food Policy Research Institute has used a computer model of global agricultural markets to estimate the reduction in hunger that would result from a 50 percent reduction in per capita meat consumption in all high-income countries, from current levels. Under this extreme and unlikely assumption, there would be 700,000 fewer chronically malnourished children in the developing world by the year 2030, compared to a “business as usual” scenario. This is a measurable gain, but very small relative to the size of the problem. Under the “business as usual” scenario, there will be 134 million cases of child malnutrition in 2030, so the payoff from a 50 percent cut in meat consumption in rich countries is only a one-half of 1 percent reduction in child hunger. Reducing meat consumption in rich countries remains an excellent idea for the purpose of improving health and moderating environmental damage in those same rich countries, but not for getting more food to the hungry.
What are CAFOs? Concentrated animal feeding operations, called CAFOs, are highly specialized industrial-scale facilities where large numbers of animals are kept in confinement for poultry, pork, beef, or dairy production. In wealthy countries, led by the United States, these systems have now largely replaced the small and diversified barnyard-style livestock systems that were once managed by individual farmers. CAFOs are a proven way to deliver higher volumes of standardized animal products to consumers at a much lower market price, yet they carry nonmarket costs and generate growing opposition from advocates for animal welfare, public health, and environmental protection.
Livestock, Meat, and Fish
CAFOs spread first to the poultry sector in the United States in the 1950s, then to the swine and cattle sector in the 1970s and 1980s. CAFOs are defined by the Environmental Protection Agency according to the number of animals they house. If an animal feeding operation has more than 700 mature dairy cattle, more than 1,000 cattle, or more than 30,000 laying hens or broiler chickens, it is considered a “large” CAFO and is automatically subject to regulation by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Clean Water Act. CAFOs are spreading internationally and are now especially prevalent in China, Thailand, and Vietnam, where growth is driven by rapidly rising consumer demand for meat, poultry, and eggs. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has estimated that 80 percent of all growth in livestock production around the world now takes place within “industrial” CAFO-style systems.
Are CAFOs bad for animal welfare? CAFOs manage farm animals under highly regulated conditions, typically in crowded confinement. Automated feed delivery and waste removal replace grazing and foraging, plus many of the traditional husbandry practices performed by human labor. This approach reduces land, labor, and facilities costs per unit of meat or milk produced, but even within the best maintained facilities, the impacts on animal welfare are problematic. The animals may face fewer risks from weather exposure and wild predators, and in some instances less harm from social conflict with each other, but they will be denied opportunities to engage in numerous instinctive behaviors— such as walking, perching, wing-flapping, or foraging—traditionally central to their daily routines. For example, in CAFOs pregnant sows weighing 400 pounds may be confined to iron “gestation crates” 7 feet long and 22 inches wide, in which they are unable to turn around. They will be on slatted floors that
make cleanup easier, but this will leave them with no bedding and nothing to root around in. In 2005, the American Veterinary Medical Association— which has close ties to the livestock industry—convened a task force to determine whether sows were harmed by confinement, and found that the research was mixed. This does not satisfy independent advocates for animal welfare who have no doubt that the CAFO model is harmful not only to sows in crates but also to egg-laying hens in small “battery” cages. The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and other activist groups, such as People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), are now waging campaigns to restrict or even eliminate the use of crates and cages. Sometimes these campaigns take the form of state-by-state ballot issues placed before voters; one early HSUS victory was a 2002 ballot measure outlawing gestation crates in Florida, followed by a 2008 measure outlawing crates plus battery cages in California. Another tactic is to confront industry directly with damaging publicity, including graphic undercover videos of injured or suffering animals. In 2012, after the HSUS released an exposé on a confinement facility that supplied pigs to meat giant Tyson Foods, a cascade of private food and food service companies announced that they would no longer be buying pork from pigs confined in crates. By October 2012, more than 30 fast food companies and food retailers had made this same pledge. Earlier in 2011, the HSUS also negotiated an agreement with the United Egg Producers (UEP) to work together to push for federal legislation to regulate treatment of birds in U.S. table egg production. In the United States, CAFOs are regulated for human health and safety and for environmental protection, but until recently there have been few laws governing the welfare of the animals themselves, beyond those that apply to humane transport and slaughter. The United States has laws to protect companion animal welfare (the Animal Welfare Act of 1966), but farm animals were excluded, and between 1985 and 1995,
Livestock, Meat, and Fish
to make things worse, at least 18 states passed laws explicitly exempting agriculture from existing animal cruelty laws. Other countries have embraced higher standards. In 1991, the U.K. government required pig farmers to have their animals in pens rather than crates by 1999. Pig-producing nations in the European Union (EU) were told to have their sows in pens by 2013, and some countries like Germany went much farther, introducing in 2003 a requirement that pigs have access to sunlight, toys for amusement, and at least 20 seconds of personal contact with the farmer every day. Skeptics suspect such regulations will prove difficult to enforce. When tighter regulations increase costs, they can risk creating sales opportunities for much less heavily regulated suppliers from places like Russia, China, and Latin America. In the United States, it costs about 27 percent more to raise pork crate-free and without the use of antibiotics or hormones for growth. Following the 1999 crate ban in the United Kingdom, the pig herd in that country declined by 40 percent. On the other hand, some animal welfare measures have proved easily affordable for consumers. When the McDonald’s Corporation began insisting on larger cages for egg-laying hens, the resulting increase in cost to consumers was calculated at only about 1 penny per egg.
What else generates opposition to CAFOs? Critics of CAFOs typically point to three concerns beyond animal welfare: microbial contamination in meat, excessive use of antibiotics, and pollution of water and air. The microbial contamination issue centers on a charge, made in popular films such as Food, Inc., that cattle fed on grain such as corn in feedlots, rather than raised exclusively on pasture, are more prone to grow a particularly dangerous strain of E. coli bacteria (O157:H7) in their digestive system, increasing the likelihood of meat contamination during slaughter and processing. Science does not support this claim. Grass-fed beef
is certainly more nutritious than feed-lot beef, because it has less fat, more vitamin A and E, and more omega-3 fatty acids, but there is no convincing scientific evidence that it is any less prone to O157:H7. For example, one study published in Applied & Environmental Microbiology in 2009 concluded, “Our study found similar prevalences of E. coli O157:H7 in the feces of organically and naturally raised beef cattle [on grass], and our prevalence estimates for cattle from these types of production systems are similar to those reported previously for conventionally raised feedlot cattle.” A far more genuine concern is excessive use of antibiotics in CAFO environments. The livestock industry has routinely given animals antibiotics, such as penicillin, not only to protect them from disease in crowded environments, but simply to promote weight gain. Surprisingly, 80 percent of antibiotic sales in the United States go to chickens, pigs, and cattle. This is a risk because it can speed the emergence of antibiotic-resistant strains of human pathogens. The livestock industry claims that only one-third of the antibiotics it employs are used in human medicine, but little data have been shared on how specific drugs are administered, to which animals, and why. The FDA began monitoring the presence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in retail meat in 1996, through a National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (NARMS). The most recent report, released in 2013, indicated that over the previous decade ampicillin resistance in retail chickens had increased from 17 percent to 40 percent. As early as 1977, the FDA had announced that it would begin banning some agricultural uses of antibiotics, but industryfriendly congressional resolutions against such bans forced the agency to back off. In 2004, the American Public Health Association adopted resolutions to restrict the use of antibiotics in meat production, but no action was taken. By 2009, according to the FDA’s own figures, farmers were giving healthy animals nearly 30 million pounds of antibiotics. In Europe, such practices had been banned since 1998.
Livestock, Meat, and Fish
Finally, in 2012, a federal district court judge in New York ordered the FDA to ban the use of low-dose penicillin and two forms of tetracycline for weight gain purposes. As a result, the FDA initiated a three-year phase-out of antibiotic use on livestock for growth promotion purposes, and phased in a requirement for veterinary oversight of antibiotic use. Strong opposition to CAFOs also emerges on environmental grounds. Concentrating hundreds or even thousands of animals in a confined space creates a concentrated threat to local air and water quality from the urine and manure of the animals. The resulting environmental harms may include excess nutrients in water (particularly nitrogen and phosphorus), which in turn can contribute to low levels of dissolved oxygen, leading to fish kills. Decomposing organic matter can also contribute to toxic algal blooms. CAFO systems attempt to confine the animal waste within on-site “lagoons,” to be recycled later in a safe and controlled manner, but lagoon leakage can introduce pathogens into local drinking water. The EPA calculates that states with high concentrations of CAFOs experience on average 20 to 30 serious water quality problems per year. Dust and odors can lead to worker illness and respiratory problems for those living downwind from CAFOs. In the United States, CAFOs have been regulated since 1972 under the Clean Water Act as “point sources” of pollution. A permit program sets effluent limit guidelines, and the guidelines were revised in 2003 to require that all permitted CAFOs develop nutrient management plans, but then were revised again in 2008 to require permits only for those CAFOs planning to discharge waste, a major loophole since the most environmentally damaging discharges are usually unplanned. In 1995, an eight-acre hog-waste lagoon in North Carolina burst, spilling 25 million gallons of manure into the New River, killing about 10 million fish and closing 364,000 acres of coastal wetlands to shellfishing. Two years later, a new state law was passed placing a moratorium on new construction of hog farms with more than 250 animals. Then, when Hurricane
Floyd hit North Carolina in 1999, at least five more manure lagoons burst and approximately 47 lagoons were completely flooded. Ponds and streams in rural America have always been polluted by animal waste, but usually in a widely dispersed pattern. Thanks to the growth of CAFOs, more than half of all hog production in the United States is now concentrated in just three states: Iowa, North Carolina, and Minnesota. This can generate a far more concentrated pollution risk for nearby communities.
How important are fish as a source of food? Fish and fishery products can be a valuable source of both protein and essential micronutrients. Fish are central to the diet in many cultures, particularly in Asia. Globally, fish provide nearly half the earth’s population with roughly 20 percent of their total intake of animal protein. Fish consumption is lowest in Africa, with only 9 kilograms per person per year. In the United States, per capita consumption is more than 20 kilograms per person. Two-thirds of all fish consumption takes place in Asia, where in Japan the average annual intake is 66 kilograms per capita. Japan also has the lowest prevalence of obesity in the developed world and the longest life expectancy. Growth in global fish consumption has been high, averaging 3.2 percent annually over the past half century. Fish used for food can either be from inland freshwater or from ocean saltwater, and are either captured or farmed. People eat not only finfish but many other water species as well, including large quantities of crustaceans such as crab; mollusks such as clams, mussels, and squid; and various other aquatic animals such as sea urchins. Traditionally, most fish consumption has been satisfied through capture (popular author Paul Greenberg has labeled fish “the last wild food”), but now roughly half the global supply comes from fish farming, referred to as aquaculture. This human move toward domesticating fish is roughly
Livestock, Meat, and Fish
at the same stage as our first efforts to domesticate crops and animals 10,000 years ago.
Are wild fisheries collapsing? The total catch of marine fish peaked in 1996 at 86 million tons but then declined and has recently stabilized at roughly 80 million tons. The United Nations rates ocean fisheries as either underexploited, fully exploited, or overexploited, and since 1974, when the ratings system was created, the percentage of stocks being overexploited has increased from 10 percent to 30 percent. These overexploited fisheries are producing below their biological and ecological potential and are in serious need of improved management. An added 57 percent of stocks are close to their maximum sustainable production and have no room for expansion. In 2002, at a World Summit on Sustainable Development in South Africa, participating nations agreed on a “Johannesburg Plan” to restore overexploited stocks by 2015, but this has remained largely an empty letter. A United Nations Food and Agriculture (FAO) organization report in 2012 stated bluntly, “the state of marine fisheries is worsening.” This damage to wild fisheries is a dangerous modification to a vast natural ecology, not just a threat to economic or food security. The overexploitation of marine fisheries has technological, economic, and political origins. The technology for finding and catching fish has steadily improved. Log-Range Navigation (LORAN), Global Positioning Systems (GPS), and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) allow vessels to pinpoint the most productive fishing grounds, and recent refinements to sonar technology even allow fishers to more quickly find distinct species of fish. To locate swordfish and tuna, aircraft are deployed with infrared sensors that detect subtle changes in the surface temperature of the ocean. Airborne electronic image intensifiers also can be used to detect the light given off at night by some marine algae when disturbed by passing schools of fish.
The economic driver for overexploitation is global income growth, particularly in Asia. In China, where consumers for centuries have considered fish beneficial to the brain, income growth has fueled high demand. Between 1990 and 2009, per capita fish consumption in China increased at an average annual rate of 6 percent, reaching 32 kilograms. China’s share of world fish production also grew from 7 percent to 35 percent between 1961 and 2010, and the government is now planning to expand its long-range fishing fleet by another 16 percent before the end of 2015. The political drivers for overfishing are more subtle. National governments have come to recognize the importance of sustainable exploitation, and under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea they terminated open access to coastal fisheries by claiming waters within 200 miles of their shores as an exclusive economic zone (EEZ). In these waters off the coast of the United States, stocks have been partly restored thanks to a 1996 law, the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, that set targets for rebuilding each species. As of 2013, 21 of 44 species had met the rebuilding target, and 7 others had made significant progress, increasing their populations by at least 25 percent. Fish that migrate beyond an EEZ remain at serious risk of overexploitation. In the open ocean, restricting the catch requires international cooperation, and this has not yet been forthcoming. International concern for bluefin tuna stocks, which had declined by 75 percent, triggered a 2010 proposal to ban international trade in bluefin tuna under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), but the measure was blocked by states with a strong commercial interest in the catch. Japan, which imports 80 percent of Atlantic bluefin, led the opposition, but more than 70 other countries opposed the trade ban as well. Trade bans on fish are potentially powerful instruments, since 38 percent of fishery production enters international commerce, with the European Union by itself taking 40 percent of all global imports, and with both
Livestock, Meat, and Fish
the United States and Japan depending on imports for more than half of their domestic consumption. Sustainable stocks management is also frustrated by fishing activities that are illegal, unreported, and unregulated, known as IUU. Many developing countries lack the physical or technical capacity to patrol their EEZ, and in some cases government officials in those countries are easily bribed into giving permits to those who overfish. Most regional fisheries are nominally governed by regional fishery bodies (RFBs), but these organizations depend too much on voluntary compliance by member governments, many of whom are unwilling or unable to exercise control. To supplement these RFBs, the United States and the European Union have been cooperating bilaterally since 2011, looking for better ways to keep IUU fish off the world market.
Is fish farming a solution? Fish can be raised in tanks and ponds and, with the aid of cages or nets, even in oceans, lakes, and rivers. Fully “farmed” fish are those hatched from eggs within the aquaculture facility and confined for their entire life cycle, whereas “ranched” fish spend part of their lives in the wild. Some will be hatched and released, then caught when they return (like ranched salmon), while others will be caught in the wild as juveniles, then fed in confinement until they reach market weight (like ranched bluefin tuna). The global aquaculture industry is growing rapidly, both in fresh and saltwater. In 2010, the total farm-gate value of food fish production from aquaculture was estimated at $119 billion. By volume, 89 percent of this production took place in Asia. China by itself provides 60 percent of global aquaculture production; the other major Asian producers include India, Vietnam, Indonesia, Bangladesh, and Thailand. Aquaculture production has either stagnated or contracted recently in Japan, the United States, and several European countries (with the
exception of Norway, which farms Atlantic salmon in marine cages). Two-thirds of all aquaculture species are provided with feed, which has become a significant feature of the industry. The rapid growth of aquaculture has relieved some commercial pressure on wild fisheries, but the industry nonetheless remains controversial, often because of unsolved technical problems. Disease outbreaks have affected farmed Atlantic salmon in Chile, oysters in Europe, and marine shrimp in Asia, South America, and Africa. In 2011, a disease outbreak nearly wiped out marine shrimp farming in Mozambique. In other cases, interactions between farmed and wild species are a concern. Wild Atlantic salmon collapsed as a commercial fishery in the 1960s. It has been replaced now by highly affordable farmed Atlantic salmon, but the farmed fish are often grown along wild salmon migration routes, posing risks such as farm-born diseases and parasites and wastes that create a pollution problem. A larger concern for carnivorous fish such as salmon and tuna is the toll taken on wild forage fish, such as herring and sardines. It requires 5–15 pounds of wild fish to grow a single pound of Atlantic bluefin tuna in a net pen, and overharvesting forage fish could bring damage to multiple commercial species. In the United States, the fish farming industry is politically weak compared to crop and livestock farming because it is new and non-traditional. There is no national heritage of fish farming, no established cabinet agency to support fish farming, and no tradition of property rights for fish farmers. In addition, there is often strong local opposition from environmentalists plus residential and recreational users of water resources. Similar political and institutional patterns are visible in much of Europe. For these reasons, the industry is likely to continue to expand most rapidly in the developing countries of Asia. American and European consumers will become increasingly dependent on imports of farmed fish from abroad.
11 AGRIBUSINESS, SUPERMARKETS, AND FAST FOOD
What does the word “agribusiness” mean? The term “agribusiness” was coined in 1957 by two professors at the Harvard Business School, Ray Goldberg and John H. Davis, in recognition of an important change then taking place in the American agricultural sector. The “on-farm” part of America’s agricultural economy was shrinking relative to input supply industries upstream (seed, farm chemical, and machinery suppliers) and also relative to food storage, transport, processing, manufacturing, packaging, marketing, and retail industries downstream. Since farms had become just one part of a longer and more industrialized food value chain, it made sense to begin referring to the chain as a single integrated entity: agribusiness. The new term stuck, a Journal of Agribusiness was founded, and soon after, more than 100 institutions of higher education in the United States began offering formal degrees in agribusiness. In 1990, the International Food and Agribusiness Management Association (IAMA) was founded as a worldwide networking organization and a bridge among multinational
agribusiness companies, researchers, educators, and government officials.
Why is agribusiness controversial? For those inside most food and farm industries, the word “agribusiness” is used as a descriptive term with no bad connotations; in fact, it even carries a flattering connotation of modernity. Yet for critics from outside the sector, the term carries strongly negative connotations. It is deployed to suggest that traditional and trustworthy family farmers have been replaced by powerful profit-driven corporations not accountable for the damage they do to rural communities, human health, and the environment. Critiques of American agribusiness date from 1973, when a Texas populist named Jim Hightower published a book titled Hard Tomatoes, Hard Times. Hightower argued that corporate power now dominated the U.S. Department of Agriculture and even the nation’s agricultural universities, leading to a more rapid demise of small farms, displacing farmworkers and bringing us unhealthy food. Agribusiness firms were also a target of journalist Eric Schlosser’s widely popular 1999 book Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal. More recently, in 2009, a popular film titled Food, Inc. asserted that “our nation’s food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment.” These critics identify specific corporate villains along every separate link in the value chain. Chemical companies and multinational seed companies currently tend to attract the greatest criticism, and because the St. Louis–based Monsanto Company is both a chemical company (selling herbicides) and a multinational biotechnology company (developing and patenting genetically engineered crop seeds), it is frequently the most vilified of all. Downstream from farms, among firms
Agribusiness, Supermarkets, and Fast Food
that ship and handle farm commodities, a large company from Minneapolis named Cargill is frequently criticized, both for its secrecy as a privately held firm and for its alleged market power. Within the meat sector, Tyson Foods, Inc., of Springdale, Arkansas, the world’s largest processor and marketer of chicken, beef, and pork, is depicted as an enemy of small family farmers and a threat to the environment. In the packaged food sector, ConAgra Foods, Inc., of Omaha, Nebraska, is said to damage consumer health by marketing heavily processed and chemical-laden foods such as frozen dinners, Slim Jims, and Reddi-wip. Finally, at the retail and food service end, McDonald’s and Burger King are accused of addicting children to unhealthy burgers, fries, and sweetened drinks. In 2012, restaurants delivered $600 billion worth of meals and service, more than the total value of all U.S. farm sales, suggesting that the American economy now generates more money serving food than it does in growing food. Food industries have long been an inviting target for populist attack. In 1906, a muckraking novel by Upton Sinclair, titled The Jungle, exposed disgraceful working conditions in Chicago’s meatpacking industry. Like many critics of agribusiness today, Sinclair was motivated by a suspicion toward all private corporations, and he used the emotive issue of food to dramatize these larger suspicions. The book caused a sensation, but most readers skipped over the labor rights message and focused instead on a worry that industrial meat products might not be safe to eat. Sinclair’s book led directly to passage of the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 and to the creation of a national Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Do agribusiness firms control farmers? Farmers in America have always worried about the market power of non-farmers. Historically, they worried most about bankers, railroads, and grain traders; today, they worry most
about concentration in the seed industry and in the meatpacking industry, where the market power of private companies vis-à-vis farmers has recently increased. A fear of industry concentration in the international seed sector has arisen since the 1990s, following a proliferation of patent claims on genetically engineered seeds, accompanied by a rush of corporate mergers and acquisitions. Between 1985 and 2009, annual sales in global seed markets increased from $18 billion to about $44 billion. By 2008, the Monsanto Company and its subsidiaries owned more than 400 separate plant technology patents and claimed more than 20 percent of the global proprietary seed market. The top five companies had 54 percent. On the other hand, this kind of concentration has limited reach because most countries around the world still do not allow seeds to be patented, and the vast majority do not even allow genetically engineered seeds to be planted. In addition, seed markets themselves provide only one part of the world’s total seed supply. Many farmers in poor countries, and quite a few in rich countries as well, do not buy any seeds at all on a regular basis, instead planting seeds saved from their own harvest. Within the seed markets that are proprietary, corporate concentration can be highly significant for some crops. For example, 96 percent of all genetically engineered cotton planted in the United States contains Monsanto’s patented traits, and roughly 90 percent of all patented soybean traits are owned by Monsanto. Monsanto’s first Roundup Ready soybean patent will expire in 2014, however—a reminder that the monopoly position provided by patents is always temporary. Companies enforce their seed patent claims in part through contracts with farmers called stewardship agreements, where farmers agree not to save and replant the seeds after harvest. The companies are also willing to go to court. According to one tally done by the Center for Food Safety in 2013, Monsanto has filed more than 140 patent infringement lawsuits over the years and has collected a total of $24 million in recorded judgments.
Agribusiness, Supermarkets, and Fast Food
This does represent a new element of corporate control over farmers, but economic studies of the corn and cottonseed industries show that the patented seeds have brought cost-reducing benefits that significantly outweigh any disadvantage posed by the patent claims or greater corporate concentration. Farmers buy these seeds because the traits help them cut production costs significantly. When patent-owning companies set their prices too high, as with Monsanto’s bungled introduction of a new SmartStax corn variety in 2010, farmers balk and start buying seed from another company (in this case, from an Iowa-based rival, DuPont Pioneer). In 2009, DuPont Pioneer had pressed the Obama administration to initiate antitrust action against Monsanto, but a multiyear Justice Department investigation into Monsanto was closed in 2012, without any action taken. Market concentration in the seed sector is to some extent an artifact of the stigmatizing political attacks leveled against genetically engineered seeds (discussed in Chapter 13). Such attacks dried up European investments in this technology, leaving U.S. companies like Monsanto with few international competitors. Inside the United States, in addition, government research money could have been used to develop this technology in the public sector without patent restrictions, but Congress cut back on such funding, which gave the private sector greater dominance. The American meatpacking sector has also become highly concentrated in recent years. By 2005, four companies controlled the processing of more than 80 percent of the country’s beef; three of those same four companies, along with an additional fourth, processed over 60 percent of the country’s pork. Four major companies in broiler chicken processing (including Tyson Foods) now provide more than half of the country’s chicken supply. Companies such as Tyson Foods work with thousands of individual “contract chicken growers” who provide their own land and construct their own sheds to raise the chickens, while the company owns the chickens and provides all the feed.
The growers who work for agribusiness firms under this sort of contract, as well as those still struggling to survive as independents, have reason to fear that the companies will use their market power to gain a disproportionate advantage. In the 1990s, America’s hog slaughter industry also moved toward greater vertical integration and concentration, a move that left even the remaining independent producers with less market control. The next worrisome step in vertical integration might take place in cattle markets. A legislative measure to bar meatpackers from owning, feeding, or controlling cattle was inserted into the Senate-passed version of the 2008 farm bill but then was dropped in conference before the bill was passed. Outside the biotech seed sector and the livestock sector, corporations do not yet have significant market power over farmers. The largest portion of all basic crop production in the United States now comes from very large farms, but most are still family corporations (with more than half of the voting stock held by family members). Non-family corporations account for only 6 percent of all farm sales. As for control from downstream crop purchasing companies, competitive markets tend to prevail here as well, in part because concentration among the purchasing companies is offset by the countervailing power of farmer marketing cooperatives, which can be formed legally under America’s federal marketing order system. It is a stretch to imagine, as some do, that international corporations control the lives of poor farmers in the developing world. Most poor farmers in Africa do not make any purchases of seeds at all (they save seeds from the previous season’s crop), and they make only minimal purchases of fertilizers and pesticides. When they do market a portion of their crop, it is usually to local buyers or to government-regulated marketing boards, rather than to vertically integrated agribusiness firms. Private international companies are not interested in most African farmers because they lack the purchasing power to be good customers. In Africa, only 2 percent of all investment in
Agribusiness, Supermarkets, and Fast Food
agricultural research comes from private firms. The danger is less that international investors will control poor farmers in Africa, and more that they will continue to ignore them.
Do food companies and supermarkets control consumers? Critics suspect that agribusiness firms, including retail supermarket chains, exploit their market power to raise the cost of food to consumers. When food prices rose sharply in the United States in the 1970s, Jim Hightower (of Hard Tomatoes fame) alleged that without the monopoly power of agribusiness, food would have been 25 percent cheaper for the American consumer. Careful studies by economists show that monopoly power in the food manufacturing industry does raise costs to consumers, but not by a large percentage. Bruce Gardner, a leading American agricultural economist, calculated that in the 1990s only about 2 percent of the consumer’s final marketing bill went to pay for “excess profits” due to imperfect market competition. With respect to supermarkets, studies show that the industry has become more concentrated, and in cities with fewer competing stores, consumer food prices are indeed higher. Yet the rate of profit in the retail food industry overall, measured per dollar of sales, has not increased over time, thanks to the efficiencies from larger store size that are passed on to consumers. A study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service in 1989 found no significant effect on supermarket prices from increasing industry concentration. A review by the Federal Trade Commission in 1990 found the same. Instead of controlling consumers, modern supermarkets compete with each other to attract customers by offering an ever growing array of affordable food purchase options. Some food companies have clearly held near-monopoly positions for individual food products. For example, General Foods has enjoyed nearly 90 percent of the market in Jell-Olike products. Yet there is no convincing evidence that the
company’s profits from Jell-O have been higher than for products such as peanut butter, where there is much more competition. If profits begin to move up, competitors will move in, as in the case of the creatively blended ice cream sold by Ben & Jerry’s, which became so successful that it quickly inspired competing alternative brands. The American food industry has roughly 300,000 individual firms overall, more than enough to provide competition. In the 1970s, the Federal Trade Commission looked at charges that the three largest breakfast cereal companies (Kellogg’s, General Foods, and General Mills, which together had 80 percent of the market) were engaged in predatory behavior by proliferating their own brands to monopolize store shelf space. But, after a 10-year investigation, the case was dropped. In subsequent years, the market share of these top three companies fell in any case, as new private-label companies moved into the sector.
Are supermarkets spreading into developing countries? Supermarkets are pervasive in rich countries, and they now are spreading rapidly into the developing world, bringing more choices for consumers but uncertain consequences for competing retailers and local food producers. Supermarkets tend to spring up naturally wherever people have increased incomes and refrigerators, wherever women have entered the workforce, and wherever automobile ownership has begun to spread. North America, Europe, and Japan have fit this profile for decades. In France today, just as in the United States, 70–80 percent of national food retail sales are made in supermarkets. More surprising has been the recent and rapid spread of supermarkets into parts of the developing world where affluence, auto ownership, and female workforce participation are not yet as fully developed. In Latin America, only 10 percent of all food retail sales were made through supermarkets as recently as the 1980s, but by 2000, that figure rose to 50–60 percent. Supermarkets took
Agribusiness, Supermarkets, and Fast Food
off five to seven years later in East Asia and Southeast Asia and then exhibited even faster growth. In Taiwan and South Korea, supermarket sales quickly gained a 63 percent share of all food sales. In China, as recently as 1991, there were no supermarkets at all, yet by 2001, the supermarket share in Chinese urban food markets was 48 percent. Supermarkets do not yet serve as many customers in South Asia or in Sub-Saharan Africa. For example, retail market shares in India and in Nigeria have recently reached only 5 percent. One key factor in the spread of supermarkets in poor countries has been electrification and the availability of home refrigerators, which make possible the purchase of fresh foods in larger quantity on a less frequent basis. Second has been the opening of more national economies in the developing world to foreign direct investment, particularly since the 1990s. This gave established supermarket chains, such as Ahold, Carrefour, Tesco, and Wal-Mart, opportunities to move quickly into the retail food markets of Latin America and Asia. Three of every ten pesos spent on food in Mexico today is spent at a Wal-Mart. Local consumers generally benefit when supermarkets arrive, because they gain access to a wider variety of food purchase options offered at a higher standard for both food safety and cosmetic appearance, and usually at a lower cost. Some local farmers and local food wholesale and retail competitors will be threatened, however. Traditional local farmers usually cannot provide the steady supply of top-quality fresh food that a multinational supermarket will require, because of inferior harvest techniques and lack of post-harvest product protection, resulting in lower-quality produce. As a consequence, traditional local farmers tend to be bypassed by supermarket buyers, who purchase instead from modern-style specialty farms, often created through still more foreign investment. These farms deliver contracted produce either to the supermarket directly or, more likely, to yet another new commercial institution, a distribution center that will serve as supplier to multiple local supermarkets. Systems
of this kind bypass both traditional local farms and traditional urban wholesale markets. The rapid insertion of these exotic systems into food markets in the developing world changes the diet of consumers (encouraging the consumption of more packaged foods, processed foods, and internationally branded imported foods) and it also changes the market position of local food producers and wholesalers, keeping them away from the most affluent local customer base.
Is Wal-Mart taking over food retailing in Africa and India? Wal-Mart is the world’s largest retailer (of much more than just food). It is the largest private employer in the world, with 10,000 stores in 27 different countries, under nearly 70 different names. Wal-Mart’s data-mining capacity is second only to that of the Pentagon. Until recently, supermarkets like WalMart had a relatively small footprint both in Africa (where income growth is still lagging) and in India (mostly because the government of India did not allow foreign retailers majority ownership in “multi-brand” stores). Then, in 2011, WalMart decided to invest in Africa, purchasing for $2.4 billion a majority share in the South African retail chain Massmart, which operated 290 stores in 13 African countries. Wal-Mart had earlier lost out in Asia to fast-moving rivals like Tesco and did not want this to happen in Africa. Gaining access to the Indian market remained more difficult. In 2011 the Indian Cabinet approved a plan to permit foreign retailers majority ownership, but then pulled back for a year in the face of strong opposition from small traders and shopkeepers who feared they would be put out of business. But when India’s economic growth began slowing in 2012, the government revived its plan to attract more foreign investment into the retail sector, and the president of Wal-Mart’s Indian unit responded by promising to come in as a good citizen, investing to help build the infrastructure that India needs to lower retail costs and reduce post-harvest waste. Critics and
Agribusiness, Supermarkets, and Fast Food
opposition party leaders knew that Wal-Mart was being investigated for earlier paying millions of dollars in bribes to local officials in Mexico when it expanded its operations there, and they warned that the same aggressive approach would be used to corrupt officials in India. Paying bribes (“speed money”) to local officials is often the only way to make things happen in India, where in some states retail chains must secure 50 to 60 separate regulatory approvals before they can open a store. But an international investor like Wal-Mart will come under a higher level of scrutiny if it follows this path.
Are fast food restaurant chains spreading unhealthy eating habits worldwide? Unhealthy eating styles are spreading globally. According to one 2012 estimate, three decades from now, if current trends continue, people in today’s low- and middle-income countries will be consuming as much unhealthy food as people today in rich countries. Increased consumption of packaged foods, snack foods, and soft drinks purchased from supermarkets will be part of this trend, but increased patronage at fast food (“quick-service”) restaurant chains will contribute as well. Quick-service chains went global in the 1980s and 1990s, moving into many countries alongside supermarkets and at an equally rapid rate. In 1990, South Korea had four McDonald’s restaurants; five years later, it had 48. In the same short fiveyear period, China went from having one McDonald’s restaurant to 62. Indonesia went from none to 38. Brazil went from 63 to 243. During this high-growth period, a new McDonald’s restaurant was opening somewhere in the world every three hours. Critics see this as an unfortunate imposition of bad food—as well as America’s most garish commercial culture— onto new urbanites in the developing world, who are naively enthralled at becoming more “Western.” As usual, the picture is more complicated. Quick-service “street food” for urbanites pre-dated the arrival of McDonald’s
restaurants. In Asia, takeaway stands selling salty fried foods have long been a not-so-healthy option. In South Asia, street foods abound, for example panipuri, which is fried bread with a spice and potato filling. In the Middle East, flatbread and falafel to go are found everywhere. In urban West Africa, ready-to-eat char-grilled meat sticks have long been popular. To some extent, Western fast foods are merely a replacement for these traditional local fast foods, many of which also fall short of providing a balanced diet. On the issue of cultural imperialism, anthropologists who study the impact of fast food restaurants in developing countries have found a mixed result. In many East Asian settings, fast food restaurants do not replace traditional cuisine because they are often a place to go for a snack between meals, or to socialize with friends after school. Asian customers view fast food chains as distinctly modern but not always foreign. In China, McDonald’s restaurants are 50 percent Chinese owned, nearly all are Chinese managed, and 95 percent of the food sold is sourced from China. Surveys reveal that a majority of the young customers even believe that Ronald McDonald is Chinese and lives in Beijing. Instead of changing China’s family-oriented food culture, McDonald’s makes money by catering to it. Entire families are welcomed for parties and celebrations, with paper and pen provided for young children to write and draw. Teahouses and art galleries are common features as well. Customers were initially attracted to fast food restaurants in China because they had clean toilets, a benefit that competing local restaurants soon had to provide as well. The chains that do best are those that follow local dietary preferences. KFC outsells McDonald’s in China because chicken is more of a staple in the traditional Chinese diet than beef. Subway offers kosher food in Israel, nearly all of their restaurants in Muslim countries are halal, and beef-free, porkfree, and vegetarian products are offered in India. McDonald’s has also enjoyed rapid growth in India, with 250 restaurants in 2011 and plans to double that number by 2014. In Hindu India,
Agribusiness, Supermarkets, and Fast Food
where cows are revered, beef has been taken off the menu and replaced by vegetable patties and giant Maharaja Macs made with chicken. In countries such as China and India, it is the rise of an urban middle class that has done the most to alter traditional eating practices. Multinational supermarkets and fast food chains expand to make money as soon as this underlying shift begins, and they even speed it along and shape it in a Western direction, but urbanization and income growth would have changed eating patterns in these countries even without supermarkets or Western fast food.
12 ORGANIC AND LOCAL FOOD
What is organic food? The label “organic” refers to a method of food production. Organic food is produced without any human-made (i.e., synthetic) fertilizers, pesticides, or preservatives. In organic systems, farmers use a variety of methods that do not require synthetic substances. For example, soil fertility is maintained by planting legumes that fix nitrogen naturally, or by using animal-derived nutrients such as composted manure. Insects are controlled using biological methods (relying on birds or spiders that eat insect pests), or by using naturally occurring pesticides such as Bt (a soil bacterium) or pyrethrins (produced by chrysanthemums) or sabadilla (derived from the ground seeds of lilies). Weeds are controlled not with synthetic herbicides but with mechanical cultivation or mulching. In place of synthetic preservatives, organic foods are traditionally cured with salt. Prior to the development of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers in the early twentieth century, all food production worldwide was de facto organic. Only in the twentieth century did organic methods come to be classified as distinct from emerging modern methods and then given a distinct label (the original label was “biodynamic”). Organically grown foods are not to be confused with foods sold as “natural,” which are
Organic and Local Food
minimally processed foods that also do not contain manufactured ingredients such as refined sugar, food colorings, or flavorings. Foods can be natural but not organic, just as they can be organic but not natural.
What is the history of organic food? The organic food movement began in Europe early in the twentieth century, originally as a philosophical rejection of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer. In 1909, two German chemists, Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch, had discovered a method to capture atmospheric nitrogen for agricultural use by combining it with hydrogen under high temperature and pressure, resulting in ammonia. Followers of a pre-scientific “vitalist” philosophy, who asserted that living things such as plants could only be properly nurtured by the products of other living things (e.g., other plants, or animal manure), rejected this method of capturing nitrogen. The strongest rejection came in Austria, where the philosopher Rudolf Steiner championed what he called biodynamic (“life force”) farming, which meant growing crops with composted animal manure plus other preparations such as chamomile blossom and oak bark. Steiner’s approach was later promoted in Germany under the Third Reich by Rudolf Hess and Heinrich Himmler, who had come to doubt the sustainability of using artificial fertilizer and advocated instead “agriculture in accordance with the laws of life.” Skepticism toward synthetic nitrogen fertilizer was also found in England at the time, where elements of the aristocracy (including Sir Albert Howard and Lady Eve Balfour) took the lead in arguing against what they considered “artificial manures.” To the present day, organic farming has strong support within the English upper class, most notably from Prince Charles, who in 1986 converted his own Duchy Home Farm to a completely organic system. The term “organic farming” was not coined until 1942, when the American Jerome Irving (J. I.) Rodale, who had taken
inspiration from Sir Albert Howard’s writings, began publishing a magazine he titled Organic Gardening and Farming. Rodale was also a promoter of alternative health care methods, and in the 1950s he founded Prevention magazine. Organic backyard gardening has always been popular, but organic commercial farming was not at first promoted, in part because production costs were high and the demand for organic products was low. Organic products cost 10 to 40 percent more than conventionally grown products, and they were at first sold only in specialty markets or health stores. The organic option gained a stronger popular following after Rachel Carson’s compelling critique of synthetic pesticide use in her 1962 book, Silent Spring. A movement that began as a rejection of synthetic fertilizer thus was reenergized by Carson’s rejection of synthetic pesticides. Organic advocacy from both growers and consumers eventually led Congress, in 1990, to mandate the creation of a clear national standard for certifying and labeling organically grown products. The emergence of this credible certification and labeling standard triggered a far more rapid expansion of both organic production and sales. Because organically grown foods commanded a higher price in the marketplace, even growers not attracted to the movement on philosophical grounds could find a commercial incentive to convert to organic production systems.
How is organic food regulated in the United States? Organic foods are regulated under a National Organic Program (NOP) created in 2002 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Under this program, foods can be labeled “organic” only if grown and handled by certified organic producers and processors. The certification is performed not by the USDA directly but by third-party government-accredited certifiers who charge a fee. Certification can cost approximately $700 per farm in the first year, then $400 annually in later years.
Organic and Local Food
Certification is based on a requirement that only “non-synthetic” substances be used in organic production and handling. Synthetic fertilizers and pesticides are generally prohibited, along with the use of sewage sludge for fertilizer, the use of irradiation to kill food pathogens, and the planting of genetically engineered seeds. The USDA’s original proposal would have allowed the use of sewage sludge, irradiation, and genetically engineered seeds, but outraged advocates for organic food sent 275,000 letters of complaint, so the government agreed in the end to exclude all three. Farms must be free of all prohibited substances and practices for at least three years to qualify for certification. In animal production, any animals used for meat, milk, or eggs must be fed 100 percent organic feed, have access to the outdoors, and may not be given hormones or antibiotics. Certified handlers of food must use only organic ingredients and must prevent organic and non-organic products from coming into contact with each other. The products marketed by certified growers and handlers are entitled to carry a prominent logo that says “USDA Organic.” Once this system began operating in 2002, consumer confidence in the integrity of organic sellers increased, and commercial sales began increasing rapidly at annual rates originally above 15 percent, slowing to 7 percent by 2010. The organic sector nonetheless remains small in the United States, making up only 4 percent of total food purchases as of 2010. Organically grown foods are produced on only one-half of 1 percent of harvested cropland in the United States.
Is most organic food grown on small farms? Most of the individual farms in the organic sector are still small and highly diversified, but the bulk of organic production does not come from these small farms. Small farms with less than $100,000 in annual sales represent 70 percent of all individual organic farms in America, but together they make only 7 percent of all sales. Operations of any size can seek organic
certification, so most commercial production now comes from large and highly specialized organic farms. For example, in 2011, half of all organic crops grown in the United States came from just one state—California—and three-quarters of all production came from large farms with annual sales of more than $1 million. Earthbound Farm in California operates 37,000 acres, growing organic packaged salads and baby greens. Most organic milk production also comes from large farms. Before pasture requirements were clarified in 2010, organic certification was permitted for massive industrial operations that milked as many as 10,000 cows. Large numbers of small organic farmers still sell their products through local farmers’ markets, but this is now just a small part of total organic sales. As early as 2002, only 13 percent of organic vegetable sales were still being made through farmers’ markets; most of the rest was moving through supermarkets like Wal-Mart. A growing share of organic food on the market is now also being sold in packaged and processed form, by large food companies such as PepsiCo, Kellogg, or Kraft. Despite this commercial expansion, organically grown foods have remained considerably more expensive than their conventional counterparts. One 2011 survey of offerings at Safeway revealed that organic strawberries, broccoli, milk, and eggs cost 19 percent, 58 percent, 66 percent, and 128 percent more than the conventional alternatives. Philosophical advocates for organic farming fight against the industrial aspects of modern organic production, fearing that the big growers will lobby the USDA to weaken the organic standard for their own convenience. When the big growers and food companies moved in, for example, they managed to secure a 2006 amendment to the organic standard that created a list of “synthetic substances allowed for use” in certified organic crop production. This weakening of the standard took place over objections from purists such as the Cornucopia Institute and the Organic Consumers Association (OCA).
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Is organic food more nutritious and safe? Consumers who pay more to purchase organic foods do so for multiple reasons. With organic fruits and vegetables, the motivation is often to gain a nutritional advantage, or to avoid pesticide residues on food, or to increase farmworker safety and protect the environment. Purchasers of organic meats and other livestock products often want to avoid microbial contamination, excessive antibiotic use, and the confined treatment of animals that typifies conventional livestock operations. Strictly on nutritional grounds, health professionals from outside the organic community have found little or no advantage from organic foods. Claims of superior nutrient content continue to be made by the Organic Center, an institution founded in 2002 to demonstrate the benefits of organic products. For example in 2008, the Organic Center published a review “confirming” the nutrient superiority of plant-based organic foods, showing that they contained more vitamin C and vitamin E and a higher concentration of polyphenols, such as flavonoids. This review was rebutted, however, by conventional nutritionists who explained that the Organic Center had used statistical results that were either not peer reviewed or not significant in terms of human health. Organic milk from cows raised on grass may indeed contain 50 percent more betacarotene, but there is so little beta-carotene in milk to begin with that the resulting gain is only an extra 112 micrograms of beta-carotene per quart of milk, or less than 1 percent the quantity of beta-carotene found in a single medium-size baked sweet potato. According to the Mayo Clinic, “No conclusive evidence shows that organic food is more nutritious than is conventionally grown food.” European health professionals tend to agree. Claire Williamson from the British Nutrition Foundation states, “From a nutritional perspective, there is currently not enough evidence to recommend organic foods over conventionally produced foods.” In 2009, the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition published a study, commissioned by the British Food
Standards Agency, of 162 scientific papers produced in the past 50 years on the health and diet benefits of organically grown foods and found no evidence of a benefit. The director of the study concluded, “Our review indicates that there is currently no evidence to support the selection of organically over conventionally-produced on the basis of nutritional superiority.” In 2012, a review of data from 237 studies conducted through the Center for Health Policy at Stanford University, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, concluded that there were no convincing differences between organic and conventional foods in nutrient content or health benefits. The claim that organic food is safer due to lower pesticide residues is also suspect in the eyes of most health professionals. The Mayo Clinic says, “Some people buy organic food to limit their exposure to [pesticide] residues. Most experts agree, however, that the amount of pesticides found on fruits and vegetables poses a very small health risk.” Residues on food can be a significant problem in developing countries, where the spraying of pesticides is poorly regulated and where fruits and vegetables are often sold unwashed, straight from the field. Yet in advanced industrial countries such as the United States, foods sold through commercial channels have residue levels that present only the smallest risk to health. In 2003, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) analyzed several thousand samples of domestic and imported foods in the U.S. marketplace and found that only 0.4 percent of the domestic samples and only 0.5 percent of the imported samples had detectable chemical residues that exceeded the regulatory tolerance levels set by the United Nations through the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO). These tolerance levels intentionally err on the side of caution. The UN establishes acceptable daily intake (ADI) levels for each separate pesticide, set conservatively at 1/100th of an exposure that still does not cause toxicity in laboratory animals. Actual exposure levels, in turn, are almost always far below
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the ADI level. When the FDA surveyed the highest exposures to 38 chemicals in the diets of various population subgroups in the United States, it found that for 4 of these 38 chemicals, the highest exposures were still less than 5 percent of the ADI level. For the other 34 chemicals, exposures were even lower, less than 1 percent of the ADI level. Carl K. Winter and Sarah F. Davis, food scientists at the University of California–Davis and the Institute of Food Technologies, conclude from these data, “[T]he marginal benefits of reducing human exposure to pesticides in the diet through increased consumption of organic produce appear to be insignificant.” It is true that conventional foods are sometimes not safe to consume, but organically grown foods can also carry risks. In 2006, bagged fresh spinach from a California farm in its final year of converting to organic certification was the source of E. coli infections in the United States that killed at least three and sickened hundreds. In 2009, there were nine documented fatal episodes of salmonella poisoning from peanut butter and ground peanut products traced to peanut plants in Texas and Georgia, both of which had organic certification. In 2011, 53 people died from eating bean sprouts that were organically grown in Germany yet were contaminated with E. coli bacteria.
Is organic farming better for the environment? Organic farming systems are in some ways better for protecting the natural environment but in other ways they may be worse. As a general rule, organic systems are less likely to generate damaging chemical runoff and groundwater pollution, yet they will require the clearing of more land per bushel of production, which makes them a threat—if scaled up—to forests, fragile lands, and wildlife habitat. Organic food is often promoted as friendly to the environment because there is no synthetic fertilizer or pesticide use. This is correct, yet the assertion must be qualified because organic farmers who over-apply or mismanage animal waste
can also pollute groundwater and surface water. Conversely, well-managed conventional systems, through the employment of no-till practices and precision applications of water and chemicals, can keep environmental damage to a minimum. The best farming systems for the environment will actually integrate conventional and organic methods. For example, soil health is often best protected when prudent quantities of synthetic chemical fertilizers are used in combination with cover crops, crop rotations, and manure. Yet this best practice is blocked by the rigid organic standard, because the use of any synthetic nitrogen is strictly prohibited. Pest control is best accomplished through integrated pest management (IPM) methods that begin with natural biological controls but allow careful applications of chemical insecticides as a last resort, yet even the smallest use of synthetic chemicals is blocked under the organic standard. The strict prohibition against synthetic herbicide use in organic farming also holds back the use of notill practices, which are a superior method for avoiding soil erosion, burning less diesel fuel, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The organic standard also makes it impossible to plant genetically engineered crops such as Bt corn and Bt cotton, which help conventional farmers reduce insecticide use. Environmental protection was not the original motive for advocating organic methods a century ago, so these environmental limitations embedded in the organic standard today should not be surprising. The much larger land requirements of organic systems are the biggest environmental risk that they carry. In the United States, according to USDA surveys of actual farms, yields per acre for organic row crops and vegetables are found to be only 40–80 percent as high as the conventional average. This means that organic farms must plant more land to secure each bushel of production. The same is true in Europe, where organically grown cereal crops have yields only 60–70 percent as high as those conventionally grown. In the United Kingdom, organic winter wheat yields are only 4 tons per hectare compared to
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8 tons per hectare for conventional farms. If Europe tried to feed itself organically, it would need an additional 28 million hectares of cropland, equal to all the remaining forest cover of France, Germany, Denmark, and Britain combined. The uncertain environmental payoff from organic farming was confirmed in a 2012 report by scientists at Oxford University, published in the Journal of Environmental Management. Based on findings from 71 peer-reviewed studies, this report concluded that organic systems were often better for the environment per unit of land, but conventional systems were often better per unit of production. In other words, as production requirements increase, the environmental cost of holding to the organic standard will increase as well. In terms of greenhouse gas emissions, this Oxford study also found that organic milk, cereals, and pork production generated higher greenhouse gas emissions per unit of output than the conventional alternative.
Could today’s world be fed with organically grown food? Assuming current levels of consumption, it is no longer possible to feed the world with organic farming systems that prohibit the use of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer. In the past century, the population of the earth has increased from 1.6 billion to 7 billion, and these much larger numbers are being fed thanks largely to higher crop yields made possible by synthetic nitrogen. Since the 1930s, for example, wheat yields in conventional farming using nitrogen fertilizer have doubled. Vaclav Smil, an agronomist from the University of Manitoba, calculates that synthetic fertilizers currently supply about 40 percent of all the nitrogen used by crops around the world. To replace this synthetic nitrogen with organic nitrogen would require the manure production of approximately 7–8 billion additional cattle, roughly a fivefold increase from current numbers, creating an unacceptable environmental burden. Feeding of all these animals organically, without crops grown using nitrogen
fertilizer, would require a conversion of much of the earth’s surface to pasture land, an intolerable option on both economic and environmental grounds. Advocates for organic farming, such as the International Federation of Organic Agricultural Movements (IFOAM), do not address the problem in such terms. They assert that organic practices can increase yields, based on farming projects they have carried out in some of the world’s hungriest regions, such as Africa. They point for documentation to a 2006 meta-study in the journal Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems and to a 2008 United Nations report titled Organic Agriculture and Food Security in Africa. Yet most of the yield claims made in these studies are based on project-level comparisons between improved organic systems and traditional systems that provide no soil improvements at all, rather than on comparisons between organic and conventionally fertilized “green revolution” systems. Many of Africa’s smallholder farmers today are actually de facto organic, because they use no synthetic fertilizers or pesticides, and they are not more productive as a result. Certified organic farming has expanded in Africa in recent years, but mostly to grow crops for export to supermarkets in Europe, rather than to provide food for local consumption.
What is the local food movement? When industrial-scale operations began taking over organic farming in the United States, advocates looking for alternatives began to demand something more: local food, purchased directly from growers at farmers’ markets, community gardens, co-ops, or through community-supported agriculture (CSA) subscriptions. The social movement to promote locally grown food was consolidated in the United States in 2005, when Jessica Prentice, the founder of a community-supported kitchen in Berkeley, California, coined the term “locavore” to describe
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those who opt to get their food, when possible, from within a 100-mile radius (the 100-mile diet). It became clear that significant numbers of consumers were willing to pay more for locally grown food, so farmers’ markets and local CSAs began to proliferate, retail stores and restaurants began to label locally sourced products as such, and schools began developing “farm to school” relationships with local growers. Suburban communities lifted restrictions on backyard livestock production, and Williams-Sonoma launched a new “Agrarian” line of home products that included $1,300 chicken coops and $70 vintage watering cans (pre-scuffed to give an impression of frequent use). The local food movement has brought a significant expansion in direct farmer-to-customer sales. Between 1994 and 2012, the number of local farmers’ markets in the United States increased from 1,755 to 7,864, and between 2001 and 2010 the number of CSAs increased from 761 to 2,500. In 2010, WalMart, the largest grocer in the United States with $120 billion a year in food sales, pledged to increase the locally sourced share of its fruit and vegetable sales up to 9 percent by 2015. Safeway and other chains moved in the same direction. There is no single agreed-upon definition of “local” food. The U.S. Department of Agriculture describes a food product as local or regional if it either comes from in-state, or from within a 400-mile radius, a distance four times as great as the movement’s leaders would prefer. When labeling its products “locally grown,” Wal-Mart uses the in-state definition. Whole Foods uses a time-in-transit standard (7 or fewer hours of travel by car or truck) but allows individual stores to use tighter rules if they wish.
What explains the growing market for local food? Surveys reveal that consumers are willing to pay more for locally grown food because they perceive it to be fresher, because they want to support their local economy, because
they want to know where their food did or did not come from, and also because they want to support small farms as opposed to factory farms. Some consumers also believe local food will be more nutritious and safer to eat than supermarket food. The nutritional advantages can be real, because locally grown food sold at a farmers’ market is more likely to have been picked recently and closer to optimal ripeness. As a disadvantage, most local food is only available in season, so in colder regions an effort to buy locally can be an excellent supplement to good nutrition during warm months, but less so in winter. Regarding safety, locally grown food is ordinarily just as safe as supermarket food, but seldom any safer. Spoilage of meat is as much of a problem when buying from small local producers as when buying from supermarkets. Produce from farmers’ markets is sometimes less thoroughly washed. Local raw-milk cheese may be just as likely to carry listeria. Small local producers often lack the costly equipment used by larger operations to protect against microbial contamination. In 2010, local growers who make direct sales demanded from Congress—and received—an exemption from some new food safety requirements that others would have to observe. Apart from cost, nutrition, safety, or convenience, direct food sales from farmers to local consumers do bring important social benefits. Some consumers purchase food from farmers’ markets or CSAs simply to add a satisfying social dimension to their weekly food routine. Sociologists calculate that shoppers will have on average ten times as many conversations at a farmers’ market compared to a supermarket. Journalist Michael Pollan, a leading voice in the local food movement, observes that when people shop at a farmers’ market they become less like consumers and more like neighbors. “In many cities and towns,” he wrote in 2010, “farmers’ markets have taken on (and not for the first time) the function of a lively new public square.”
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Political support for the local food movement has grown strong enough in the United States to inspire a number of supporting federal programs, including a Community Food Project Grants Program for CSAs, a voucher program for lowincome seniors to shop at farmers’ markets, a Commodity Facilities Program to support construction of farmers’ markets, and a USDA initiative named “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food,” designed in 2009 to connect consumers with local producers by supporting community food projects and farmto-school programs. Also in 2009, advocates for local food persuaded First Lady Michelle Obama to plant a vegetable garden on the White House lawn. At the state level, Vermont is now financing a mobile slaughter unit for small-scale poultry processing, and Alaska has a procurement law for state agencies requiring food purchases to be in-state so long as the cost is no more than 7 percent above the out-of-state price. Home and community gardens, farmers’ markets, CSAs, co-ops, and farm-to-school programs are unlikely ever to constitute more than a tiny share of total food sales in the United States. In 2008, according to the USDA, such sales represented only about 1.6 percent of the U.S. market for all agricultural products. The dominant long-term commercial trend remains one of globalization, not localization. Much of the food grown in the United States continues to be exported, and the imported share of food consumption has increased as well, from 12 percent in 1990 up to 17 percent by 2009. Worldwide, the total volume of agricultural products traded internationally has increased more than sixfold since 1950, in part because ocean freight shipping rates have fallen by 60 percent. Improvements in product protection and shipping technologies such as refrigerated containers and flash freezing, plus falling air freight rates, allow even highly perishable products to move internationally today. Consumers are willing to pay more for local foods, but they also want fresh fruits and vegetables available at the supermarket year-round. Food markets have been responsive enough to supply more of both.
What is urban agriculture? City dwellers in the United States have long planted gardens wherever space is available, particularly during World War II, when “Victory Gardens” were officially promoted as a supplement to the nation’s food supply. In developing countries today, recent migrants from the countryside almost always bring gardening habits—and even livestock production—into the city with them. Urban agriculture in the United States today is being promoted as part of the local food movement, with patterns of growth that take both an outdoor and an indoor form. Outdoor urban gardening has spread rapidly in cities such as Detroit and Chicago, where out-migration and industrial decline have left a patchwork of vacant lots. These are often the same neighborhoods where supermarkets selling fresh vegetables can seem hard to find, so the residents of these communities, either spontaneously or with municipal support, increasingly turn to food gardening. In Detroit, neighborhood gardeners have filled up thousands of vacant lots in the city with small vegetable plots. Urban gardening for personal use typically requires no permit, while farming for commercial sale quite often does, and commercial animal production may be prohibited entirely, on public health grounds. In other cities where land values remain high, the spread of urban gardens and farming has been more limited. For example, while New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg has tasked city agencies to identify vacant parcels that might be reclaimed for gardening, the actual number of community gardens in New York has fallen by half since the mid-1980s. Outdoor city gardens on vacant land can provide nutritious food and healthy exercise, but there can also be safety risks from soil contamination on industrial lots, or from the use of waste water for irrigation, odors from composting, and hazards from the exposure of food to vehicle emissions. An entirely different form of urban agriculture is indoor production in vertical greenhouses, called “vertical farming.”
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While not yet a proven commercial option, high-rise vegetable production systems are currently being piloted in a number of locations, including a 12-story triangular tower in Sweden (a “Plantagon”) where leafy green vegetable plants will grow in boxes while traveling slowly around the sunny perimeter of the glass structure, on tracks from the top floor to the bottom floor, where the boxes are harvested, replanted, then lifted mechanically back to the top. Such systems can be located close to urban markets and can operate year-round, immune from weather risk. But these advantages may not be able to offset the high capital and energy costs.
Does local food help slow climate change? Claims that local food production cut greenhouse gas emissions by reducing the burning of transportation fuel are usually not well founded. Transport is the source of only 11 percent of greenhouse gas emissions within the food sector, so reducing the distance that food travels after it leaves the farm is far less important than reducing wasteful energy use on the farm. Food coming from a distance can actually be better for the climate, depending on how it was grown. For example, fieldgrown tomatoes shipped from Mexico in the winter months will have a smaller carbon footprint than local winter tomatoes grown in a greenhouse. In the United Kingdom, lamb meat that travels 11,000 miles from New Zealand generates only one-quarter the carbon emissions per pound compared to British lamb because farmers in the United Kingdom raise their animals on feed (which must be produced using fossil fuels) rather than on clover pastureland. When food does travel, what matters most is not the distance traveled but the travel mode (surface versus air), and most of all the load size. Bulk loads of food can travel halfway around the world by ocean freight with a smaller carbon footprint, per pound delivered, than foods traveling just a short distance but in much smaller loads. For example, 18-wheelers
carry much larger loads than pickup trucks so they can move food 100 times as far while burning only one-third as much gas per pound of food delivered. Local growers who move food around in small loads by pickup are burning far more fossil fuel, per tomato delivered, than large growers from out of state who move food around in bulk.
What is the difference between local food and slow food? The slow food movement (whose logo is a snail) originated in Italy in 1986, initially as a backlash against the introduction of fast foods into Europe. Slow food advocates work to preserve local cuisines and gastronomic traditions, including heirloom varieties of local grains and breeds of livestock. They view this as one way to fight back against both the loss of culture and the frenzy brought to us by fast foods, supermarkets, and global agribusiness. Slow food is now an important international social movement with roughly 100,000 members organized into more than 1,300 local chapters (called convivia) in 150 different countries. Each convivium promotes local farmers, local food artisans, and local Taste Workshops. The United States has far less gastronomic tradition to preserve than Italy, but in 2008, more than 60,000 people attended a slow food national gathering in San Francisco, savoring local cuisines at taste pavilions and celebrating the planting of an urban garden in front of city hall. In 2010, thousands of local slow food supporters participated in a national “Dig In,” by first gardening together and then eating together.
What explains the loyalty of some groups to organic, local, or slow food? Groups in society have always sought solidarity through the foods they eat, or the foods they agree not to eat. Within most religious traditions, patterns of food consumption are carefully regulated. Judaism has strict rules, called kashrut, to specify
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what may and may not be eaten. In Islam, foods are divided into haram (forbidden) and halal (permitted). Hindus who embrace the concept of ahimsa do not eat meat to avoid doing violence to animals. In Roman Catholicism, fasting is required and meat consumption is discouraged at certain times in the religious calendar. In today’s less religious world, we should not be surprised to see the emergence of new food rules to express solidarity around secular values. The new rules that emerge (organic, local, or slow) may be attractive or practical only for relatively small subcategories of citizens, or perhaps only for a small part of the diet of those citizens, but the exclusivity and difficulty of the rule can be part of its attraction. The goal is to express through the diets we adopt a solidarity with others who share our identity, our values, or our particular life circumstances. The scientific foundation for these modern food rules may at times be weak, but the social value can nonetheless be strong.
13 FOOD SAFETY AND GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOODS
How safe is America’s food supply? In rich countries, the food choices available in supermarkets and restaurants are almost always free from dangerous levels of toxic or microbial contamination. Even when they are not healthful or nutritious, they at least can be considered “safe.” In the United States, food safety risks are low—in fact, lower than ever—yet as societies become more affluent, even a small risk can be seen as unacceptable, so the public demand for strong food safety policies continues to increase. Food safety lapses remain favorite stories in the popular media, and both food companies and food retailers know they will pay a heavy price if a lapse can be traced back to them. Food can be a source of more than 200 known diseases, exposing us to viruses, bacteria, parasites, toxins, metals, and prions (as in the case of mad cow disease). Food illness symptoms can range from mild gastroenteritis to life-threatening neurologic, hepatic, and renal syndromes. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, food-borne diseases cause approximately 3,000 deaths
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in the United States each year. Three pathogens, salmonella, listeria, and toxoplasma, are responsible for approximately 30 percent of the deaths. Children under the age of four are sickened by food more than any other age group, but adults over the age of 50 suffer more hospitalizations and deaths. The changing frequency of food-borne illness in any large population is difficult to monitor and measure. Mild cases often go unreported, so official frequency counts will be heavily dependent on the intensity of surveillance. Nationally since 1996, the CDC has attempted to track food-borne sickness through regular surveys of more than 650 clinical laboratories around the country that serve about 46 million people in 10 different states. At the state level, surveillance is less systematic, leading to counts that are hard to compare. Food-borne illness can even be overreported, because many pathogens transmitted by food may also be spread through water or from person to person without anything being ingested at all. Specific pathogens may never be identified, creating a further possibility that an illness was unrelated to food. America’s food supply is far safer today than it was in the past, before the era of refrigeration and sanitary packaging. Surveys by the CDC show decades of steadily increasing safety, up to the present day for some common infections. For example, infections caused by E. coli O157 declined by 44 percent between 1996 and 2010, while infections from listeria declined 38 percent, and campylobacter by 27 percent. Infections from salmonella, however, were no longer declining and had even increased by 3 percent between 1996 and 2010. The CDC attributes the overall downward trend in food-borne infections to enhanced knowledge about how to prevent contaminations, cleaner slaughter methods, increased awareness in food service establishments and private homes of the risks of undercooked ground beef, and regulatory prohibition, since 1994, of any contamination of ground beef with E. coli O157. The vast majority of hospitalizations and fatalities from food contamination today come not from large outbreaks
linked to dangerous batches of products in supermarkets but instead from a steady background level of illness caused by careless handling and improper preparation inside the home. Unwashed hands, unwashed cutting boards, poorly refrigerated foods, or meats insufficiently cooked are the most frequent cause. Wider illness outbreaks still take place, but the fatalities are usually quite limited. For example, illness from bagged spinach in 2006 led to a nationwide scare and the virtual suspension of all fresh and bagged spinach sales in America, but there were only three known deaths. In 2011, listeria on melons from Colorado caused the single worst food-borne disease outbreak since 1985, but with only 33 known deaths. Consumers fear contamination in meats, but in the United States twice as many people are likely to get sick from contaminated produce versus contaminated meat. Even if the CDC number of 3,000 annual deaths from foodborne illness is accurate, this is far fewer than the 30,000 deaths associated with obesity every year. Eating too much food is now a significantly greater health risk in America than eating unsafe food. Yet any illness from foods contaminated at purchase will cause public outrage, because this is an involuntary exposure to risk in contrast to risks from smoking, or overeating. Because purchasing food at supermarkets is a common experience for us all, anxieties spread quickly to vast numbers of citizens when a danger in the market is confirmed or even rumored. The unusually wide audience for these fears explains why the popular media give food illness outbreaks from product contamination such sensational coverage. Under the spotlight of media attention, government officials and politicians are always obliged to express intense concern, whatever the actual magnitude of the problem.
How do foods become contaminated? Food is vulnerable to contamination at nearly every stage along the production and delivery chain, all the way from farm to
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fork. Microbial contamination of fresh produce is possible at the farm level (a problem with California lettuce and Guatemalan raspberries in the 1990s). In meat slaughter, inadequate knife sterilization and improper evisceration or hide removal can lead to contamination. Pathogens can also be introduced by unsanitary conveyor belts or unclean processing and packaging equipment. Farther down the chain in wholesale and retail outlets, inadequate refrigeration is a problem. In restaurants, cooks who do not wash their hands introduce risks. Private industries increasingly seek to control such contamination through the use of what are called Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) systems. These systems, first innovated by the Pillsbury Company in the 1960s, identify where hazards might enter the food production process and specify the stringent actions needed at each separate step to prevent this from occurring. In 1996, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) issued its own rule for HACCP systems for meat and poultry, a requirement that is costly for industry, but effective, as suggested by the 44 percent reduction in E. coli 0157 contamination seen since 1996. Food adulteration is a related issue. Consumers will spurn foods if they are found to contain ingredients not indicated on the label—especially ingredients of lower quality—even if the food is perfectly safe to consume. Ground meats are often sold containing safe ingredients that would nonetheless surprise and even anger consumers, if they knew. In 2012, many American consumers were distressed to learn, from an ABC news broadcast, that a product extracted from slaughterhouse beef trimmings known as “pink slime” was being used in ground beef. There was no demonstrated safety risk, but some companies tried to reassure consumers by halting the sale of ground beef that used this filler. In 2013 in Europe, a discovery that some ground beef products contained more than 1 percent horse meat led to the withdrawl of millions of products from supermarkets in Ireland, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden, and Romania.
Who regulates food contamination in the United States? At the federal level, responsibility for food safety is divided between the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) inside the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) inside the Department of Agriculture. The FSIS is responsible for meat and poultry, while the FDA is responsible for everything else. State public health agencies and city and county health departments also play a continuous monitoring role. Inadequate coordination among these various agencies has been a persistent concern, and in 1998, the Clinton administration created a Food Outbreak Response Coordinating Group inside the Department of Health and Human Services, designed to increase communication and coordination. The division of labor between the FSIS and the FDA has nonetheless remained problematic. For example, frozen pizzas are inspected by the FDA if they are cheese and by the FSIS if they are pepperoni. The FSIS is responsible for chickens, but the FDA is responsible for the eggs. Food industries in the United States are generally comfortable with strong FDA safety regulations. Following a prominent salmonella outbreak in eggs in 2010, which sickened people in all 50 states (though no one died), Congress passed a new food safety law (the Food Safety Modernization Act, the first major change since 1938), giving the FDA new responsibilities to inspect food-processing plants and farms for prevention purposes, rather than just tracing contamination after it occurs. This new law had bipartisan support from Republicans as well as Democrats and from food industries as well as from consumer protection advocates. Food industries liked the law because it offered help in preventing costly product recalls. Following the 2006 E. coli spinach outbreak, traced to a single farm, total retail sales of bagged spinach dropped $202 million over the following 68-week period. After a 2009 salmonella contamination in peanut butter (traced to a single processing plant in Georgia), Kellogg had to recall peanut-containing products
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worth $70 million. Big food companies typically resist greater regulation in health or labeling, but for self-protection they welcome assistance from the FDA in preserving food safety. In fact, something of a de facto partnership between consumer advocates and big food companies surfaced in 2012, when budget cutters in the House of Representatives threatened to deny the FDA the funds it would need to implement the new 2010 law. This threat was turned back by a joint lobbying effort by consumer protection advocates plus a range of big food trade associations, including the Grocery Institute, the Snack Food Association, and the Produce Marketing Association. In the end, the budget for the FDA’s new food safety program was increased rather than cut, and in early 2013 the agency proposed a sweeping array of new rules covering all aspects of growing and harvesting produce, including threats from animal manure, worker hygiene, and water use. The compliance cost was estimated at $460 a year for U.S. farmers and $1.2 billion a year for food processors.
Is food safety an issue in international trade? Food safety often emerges as a concern in international trade, but the risks are sometimes exaggerated by those seeking to protect domestic producers from foreign competition. Imported foods from countries with lax safety standards, such as China, are a genuine concern. The United States imports more than $5 billion worth of food products from China every year, mostly seafood, juices, and pickled, dried, or canned vegetables. Prior to the enactment of a new food safety law in 2009, China had a notoriously bad food safety record. In 2008, infant formula and other milk products in China were found contaminated with melamine, an industrial chemical. Chinese peaches were found preserved with sodium metabisulfite, rice was contaminated with cadmium, noodles were flavored with ink and paraffin, mushrooms were treated with fluorescent bleach, and cooking oil was recycled from street gutters.
Fortunately for importers of Chinese food products, most of these poorly regulated food products have always been excluded from export channels. Chinese authorities work hard to control the safety of products that enter the world market by maintaining separate certification both for exporters and for the farms that supply them. A second line of defense for the United States is the FDA, which physically inspects only 2 percent of food imports into the United States but screens all imports electronically using an automated system that helps identify products posing the greatest risk. The FDA has offices in China—in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou—tasked with identifying potential food safety problems before shipments depart for the United States. Federal funding for surveillance of the nation’s food supply increased after the 9/11 attacks, following enactment of a 2002 Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act, which deputized the Department of Homeland Security to assist in enforcing FDA standards, especially at ports of entry into the country. When imported foods are found to be unsafe, the political reaction is swift and often excessive. In 1989, when the FDA announced that it had found two grapes from Chile contaminated with cyanide, it banned all imports of Chilean fruit, costing Chilean exporters more than $400 million. In 2001, the U.S. Department of Agriculture banned $278 million in annual imports of live hogs and uncooked animal products from Europe, to stem the spread of foot-and-mouth disease; the motives seemed mixed, because U.S. meat producers had been seeking such a ban for years to punish Europe for refusing to accept hormone-treated meat from the United States. In 2011 when an outbreak of E. coli in German sprouts killed 53 people, nearly all in Germany, the Germans initially tried to blame the outbreak on cucumbers from Spain. This damaged the reputation of Spanish exporters, costing them $200 million a week in lost sales. Russia then banned the import of all fresh vegetables from the entire European Union.
Food Safety and GMOs
Does the industrialization of agriculture make food less safe? The industrialization of agriculture does not make food more dangerous overall, but it does present new kinds of safety risks. In the past, food contamination outbreaks were more frequent but were localized and small scale; today, outbreaks are far less frequent (per unit of production) yet much harder to contain in one local area when they do occur. Outbreaks spread quickly today to multiple states, attracting national media attention and creating an impression that our modern food system is less safe than a more compartmentalized or localized alternative. For example, the worst food safety lapse in recent United States history was a 2011 outbreak of listeria in cantaloupe, traced to a single packing shed in Colorado. It sickened 123 people in 26 states and actually killed 33. Yet the 33 fatalities from this largest industrial farming failure were just a tiny fraction of that year’s 3,000 estimated fatalities from food-borne illness overall. Most fatalities from unsafe food still take place due to highly localized lapses, frequently inside private homes. Localized and traditional systems fail more often because they are less able to afford state-of-the-art technical options for food supply protection.
Is irradiated food safe? One method for reducing or eliminating harmful bacteria, insects, and parasites in food is to irradiate the food with brief exposures to X-rays, gamma rays, or an electron beam. This technique has been known for the better part of a century, yet it remains rarely used in the United States. The Food and Drug Administration approved irradiation as safe and effective for use on poultry in 1992, and on meat in 1997, but it is rarely used because it makes the meat more costly and because the industry fears an adverse consumer response to the word “radiation.” In the United States, irradiated foods must be labeled with a
symbol, plus the words “treated with irradiation.” In 2001, the CDC estimated that if half the nation’s meat and poultry supply were irradiated, the result would be 900,000 fewer cases of food-borne illness and 350 fewer deaths. Advocates for irradiation observe that the technique has been judged safe by the government and might have killed the salmonella that reached grocery store shelves early in 2009 in peanut butter and peanut paste. Critics say that irradiation would only be used by private companies to hide the filthy condition of their plants.
What is genetically modified food? Nearly all foods come from plants and animals with genes that have been modified over time through human interventions such as on-farm selection of seeds, or scientific plant breeding. In current usage, however, the term “genetically modified” is reserved for plants or animals modified through genetic engineering, also known as transgenic science or recombinant DNA (rDNA) science. Genetic engineering, first practiced in 1973, provides a method for modifying plants and animals not through controlled sexual reproduction but instead by moving individual genes physically from a source organism directly into the living DNA of a target organism. The value of this technique comes from its precision and its ability to use a wider pool of genetic resources. For example, genes carrying a specific trait to resist insect damage can be moved from a soil bacterium named Bt into a corn plant or into a cotton plant. The modified versions of these plants are known as Bt corn and Bt cotton. Alternatively, genes that direct a plant to produce beta-carotene (a precursor of vitamin A, which helps prevent blindness) can be moved from a daffodil plant into a rice plant, resulting in something called “Golden Rice.” The first engineered crop approved for commercial sale was a tomato with extended shelf life (the FlavrSavr tomato), marketed by the Calgene Company in 1994, following regulatory approval by the FDA. Then, in 1995, the Monsanto
Food Safety and GMOs
Company secured approval for sale in the United States of Roundup Ready soybean plants, engineered to resist the herbicide glyphosate (sold by Monsanto under the trade name Roundup), reducing the cost to farmers of weed control. With one application of glyphosate, the weeds would die, but the soybean plants would not. By 1996, Monsanto’s Bt corn and Bt cotton had also been approved for commercial use in the United States. The European Union also approved a number of genetically engineered crops both for human consumption and for planting in 1995–1996, including soybean, maize (corn), and canola; Japan approved soybean and tomato; Argentina approved soybean and maize; Australia approved cotton and canola; and, in 1995–1996, Mexico approved soybean, canola, potato, and tomato.
How are genetically engineered foods regulated? Each national government has its own system for approving the planting and consumption of genetically engineered crops and foods. The United States, from the start, regulated genetically engineered crops and foods in much the same manner that it regulated conventional crops and foods, in keeping with a 1987 National Academy of Sciences finding that there was no evidence of “unique hazards” from the modification of plants using rDNA methods versus other methods. All new crops in the United States, including genetically engineered crops, are subject to regulation for biosafety (safety to the biological environment, especially to other agricultural crops and animals) by the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) of the Department of Agriculture. If a crop has been engineered to produce a pesticide (such as Bt), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) must give its approval. The FDA is the agency that reviews new genetically engineered crops for food safety. The FDA considers the genetically engineered varieties of familiar foods to be no less safe than the conventional varieties of those same foods, so long as the engineering process has
not introduced a new or unfamiliar toxicant, nutrient, or allergenic protein. Technology developers consult with the FDA to share the results of their own safety testing (the consultation is voluntary, but all developers do it); then they can put the new product on the market. Governments in Europe have a different approach to regulating genetically engineered crops and foods, known there as genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The European approach, which many other governments around the world also follow, is to create separate laws and separate approval procedures for GMOs, and also to regulate this technology according to a significantly higher standard. Regulators in Europe can block the approval of a GMO without any evidence of an actual risk to human health or the environment, under what is known as the “precautionary principle.” A new technology can be blocked simply on suspicion of a risk not yet tested for, or because of fears that a risk not found in the short run might nonetheless develop in the long run. Despite this more precautionary approach, regulatory authorities in Europe, acting through the European Union, did approve a number of GMO foods and crops in 1995–1996, as mentioned above. Opinion in Europe then soured following a major food safety crisis linked to “mad cow disease” in the United Kingdom, a crisis entirely separate from GMOs but one that undercut citizen confidence in government food safety regulators. European regulators needed to restore their credibility with consumers, so they became more cautious toward all food technologies, especially GMOs. In 1998, yielding to demands from European activist groups such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, they imposed an informal moratorium on any new approvals of GMOs. A number of European governments even began rejecting GMOs that had earlier been approved by EU authorities. Finally, in 2004, the European Union introduced a new set of regulations intended to reassure consumers through strict labeling and tracing in the marketplace of any approved
Food Safety and GMOs
GMO foods. Henceforth, all GMO products with as much as 0.9 percent transgenic content would have to carry an identifying label, and operators in the food chain handling approved GMOs would have to maintain audit trails, for at least five years, showing where each GM product came from and to whom it had been sold. Instead of reassuring consumers, these tight regulations strengthened the popular impression that the technology must be dangerous in some way. Food companies in Europe responded by voluntarily taking GMO ingredients out of their products, in order to avoid any stigmatizing label.
How widespread are genetically engineered foods? Since 1995, the global area planted to GMO crops has expanded at a steady rate, reaching 170 million hectares by 2012. Still, the uptake remains limited both by geography and by crop variety. As of 2012, only 17 countries worldwide were planting more than 100,000 hectares of GMO crops, and 8 of those countries were in the Western Hemisphere. The top three countries were the United States (69 million hectares), Brazil (37 million hectares), and Argentina (24 million hectares). These top three Western Hemisphere countries, in other words, were planting more than three-quarters of all the GMOs being grown commercially worldwide. The varieties of GMO crops grown commercially were also limited. Roughly 95 percent of the global area planted to GMOs is planted to just three crops: soybean (47 percent), maize (32 percent), and cotton (14 percent). Soybean and maize are grown in most countries for livestock feed, and cotton is an industrial crop. Very little land area has been devoted so far to growing GMO crops for direct human food consumption. Even in the United States, the leading GMO producer, anxieties regarding consumer resistance have blocked the commercialization of most GMO food crops. It is estimated that roughly 70 percent of foods in the United States contain some ingredients from GMOs, but most of those ingredients
are derivative products from soy or maize including oil, meal, sweeteners and starch. As of 2012, there was no GMO wheat or rice being grown commercially anywhere, and the only GMO fruits or vegetables grown commercially were papaya and summer squash. GMO potatoes were grown on 25,000 acres in the United States between 1999 and 2001, but then cultivation was voluntarily suspended when food service chains such as McDonald’s and Burger King told suppliers they did not want to be accused by activists of serving GMO french fries. GMO tomatoes were also cultivated commercially in the United States between 1998 and 2002, but as consumer anxieties increased, they too were voluntarily withdrawn. In most countries, the absence of GMO crop production reflects direct regulatory blockage. In all of Sub-Saharan Africa, as of 2012, the only two countries where it was legal for farmers to plant any GMO crops were the Republic of South Africa and Burkina Faso, and in Burkina the only crop legal to plant was cotton, an industrial crop. In much of Sub-Saharan Africa, it is not yet legal even to do research on GMO crops. Both India and China have invested public resources in developing GMO crops, but so far the only crop approved for cultivation in India and the only GMO crop widely cultivated in China is Bt cotton. Technical biosafety committees in these countries approved two new GMO food crops in 2009 (eggplant in India and rice in China), but in India the approval was immediately blocked through the intervention of the environment minister, and in China, as of 2012, no GMO rice had actually been commercialized. The Philippines does plant GMO maize, but it is used primarily for animal feed.
Why do some people resist GMOs? Opposition to genetically engineered foods and crops is framed by some as a defense of food safety or environmental safety, by others as a defense of the rights of traditional farming communities, and by still others as resistance against the
Food Safety and GMOs
profit-making companies that develop and patent the technology. Others object because they think that the technology has not been adequately regulated, or because there is not yet any requirement (at least in the United States) that GMO foods be labeled in the marketplace. These concerns are frequently fueled by sensational claims and charges. Critics assert that GMOs produce sterile seeds, forcing farmers to buy seeds every year. Others believe that GMOs kill butterflies, create superbugs or superweeds, and threaten biodiversity. Others believe that GMOs require increased use of chemical sprays. Others believe that rats that were fed GMOs have developed tumors. Still others believe that biotechnology companies—specifically Monsanto—will harass or sue innocent farmers for patent violations if GMO seeds blow into their fields. Others believe that the pollen from GMO crops on neighboring farms will compromise the certification of organic farmers. Others believe that GMO crops are responsible for farmer suicides in India. Defenders of GMOs have shown that none of these specific charges are true. Regarding the environmental concerns, GMO corn pollen can certainly kill monarch butterfly caterpillars in laboratory experiments, but studies conducted by the EPA reveal that under dispersed field conditions the risk is “negligible.” Regarding superweeds and superbugs, for many decades agriculture has suffered from crop pests more difficult to kill because they have evolved to resist chemical sprays, but this problem comes from the use of the chemical, not the GMO, and some GMOs, such as Bt crops, allow farmers to protect against insects while using fewer chemical sprays. Nor are the food safety risks so far alleged for GMOs backed by scientific evidence. In Britain in 1998, the media gave loud play to the results of a laboratory experiment in which GMO potatoes were fed to rats, supposedly with damaging health effects, but the Royal Society later issued a statement saying that it was wrong to conclude anything from the experiment
due to flaws in its design, and the results have never been replicated by scientists using a proper study design. A study done in Austria in 2008 purported to find lower reproduction rates among mice that had been fed with GMO corn, but when the Scientific Panel on Genetically Modified Organisms of the European Union reviewed the study, it found calculation errors, inconsistencies in treating the data, and an error in the method of calculating numbers of young mice (per pair rather than per delivering pair). The panel said that this nullified any conclusions that might be drawn from the study. Then in 2012, a French study supposedly showed that rats were more likely to develop tumors if they ate genetically modified corn sprayed with weed killer, but the European Food Safety Agency challenged the study immediately, concluding that it was “of insufficient scientific quality to be considered as valid for risk assessment.” It turned out that the rats used in the experiment had been specifically bred for a propensity to develop tumors.
Do genetically engineered crops strengthen corporate control? Many charges against GMOs are based on fears that they change our traditional relationship to food by weakening individual control and strengthening corporate control. Some aspects of this charge are easy to reject. For example, the widely held belief that GMOs have sterile seeds is simply false. GMO seeds do not contain so-called terminator genes, and they are just as easy to replicate as non-GMO seeds. Indeed, the technology has often been spread by farmers who get the seeds, take them across a border (e.g., from Argentina into Brazil), and then start planting and replanting them even without official permission. The fear that corporations will use patents on GMO seeds to gain excessive control is also an exaggeration. This risk does not apply in most developing countries, because intellectual property laws in those countries do not permit the patenting
Food Safety and GMOs
of seeds. In countries that do permit seed patents, such as the United States and Canada, biotechnology companies like Monsanto will indeed go to court to defend their patent rights, and this creates something new for farmers to deal with. Yet nearly all commercial farmers in the United States and Canada have been more than willing to purchase GMO seeds every year rather than violate patents by saving and replanting seeds from the last year’s crop. This is because the purchased seeds are of higher quality and usually deliver cost savings that more than offset the price. GMO critics frequently cite the case of Canadian canola farmer Percy Schmeiser, who in 1999 was sued by Monsanto for planting patented Roundup Ready canola seeds without a license. It was discovered that 50–95 percent of Schmeiser’s canola contained Monsanto’s gene, so he was unable to convince the Canadian Supreme Court that the seeds blew in from the road, and he lost the case. Schmeiser countersued Monsanto for libel, trespass, and the contamination of his fields but lost that case too. Monsanto does use aggressive legal tactics against those whom it suspects of intentional patent infringement, but the company does not have a record of going to court over trace amounts of GMOs introduced accidentally or through cross-pollination. The danger that accidental cross-pollination could lead to the de-certification of organic farmers is also mostly imagined. The simple presence of detectable GMO material in a crop does not constitute a violation of the national organic standard in the United States. As long as the grower has not intentionally planted GMO seed, organic certification cannot be revoked. A more legitimate concern in the United States is that GMO foods are sold in the market without an identifying label, whereas in most other advanced industrial countries, and in many developing countries as well, labels are legally mandated. Opinion research has consistently shown that a strong majority of Americans want mandatory labels on GMOs, but the Food and Drug Administration has consistently held that
there is no justification for requiring labels so long as the GMO process has introduced nothing significant for human health or safety, such as a toxin, an allergen, or a different nutrient property. A petition campaign named “Just Label It” has sought to persuade the FDA to change its position, and in 2012 a California ballot issue named Proposition 37 to mandate labels on GMO foods was launched with strong popular support. This measure failed by a vote of 53 percent to 47 percent after a number of food and biotechnology companies (led by Monsanto, Kraft Foods, PepsiCo, and Coca-Cola) waged a $46 million public campaign in opposition. Supporters of mandatory labeling vowed to try again in other states, based on a consumer’s “right to know.” In the past, however, federal judges have struck down measures that mandate labels in response to consumer curiosity alone, tating that voluntary labeling schemes are available under such circumstances. Early in 2013, the Whole Foods grocery chain announced that it would require mandatory labels in its stores for all foods with GMO content by 2018. Other private food and food retail companies also met to strategize, fearing more labeling pressures and hoping to avoid a patchwork of separate regulations state by state. Momentum for mandatory labels was building, but Congress, the FDA, and the federal court system were likely to have the last word.
Are GMO foods and crops safe? When GMO foods and crops were first placed on the market in the 1990s, some scientific bodies—for example, the British Medical Association (BMA)—initially held back from expressing an official opinion on the new technology. By the early 2000s, however, all of the most important science academies around the world—including the BMA—had concluded that there was no evidence of any new risk to human health or the environment from any of the GMO foods or crops that had been placed on the market up to that point.
Food Safety and GMOs
This remains the official position of the Royal Society in London, the BMA, the French Academy of Sciences, and the German Academies of Science and Humanities. It is also the official position of the International Council for Science (ICSU), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris, the World Health Organization (WHO), and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. In 2010, the Research Directorate of the European Union produced a report that went so far as to state that, “biotechnology, and in particular GMOs, are not per se more risky than e.g. conventional plant breeding technologies.” Many skeptics are not persuaded by the absence of credible scientific evidence of new risks. They invoke the precautionary slogan, “Absence of evidence is not the same thing as evidence of absence.” GMO defenders respond that if you spend more than a dozen years looking for evidence of a new risk and fail to find it, that may not be proof of absence (because nobody can prove a negative), but it does count as evidence of absence. At a deeper psychological level, many skeptics resist GMO foods and crops not because new risks are present, but instead because, to them as consumers, new benefits are largely absent. The first generation of GMO crops to come on the market helped farmers control weeds and insects at lower cost, but these GMOs did not provide a visible direct benefit to food consumers. GMO maize and GMO soybeans did not look any better, taste any better, or nourish any better, and they did not make food noticeably cheaper in Europe or the United States. In the absence of a visible direct benefit, ordinary consumers saw nothing to lose from a highly precautionary response. Consistent with this explanation is the fact that consumers— even in Europe—have not expressed any opposition to the use of genetic engineering in medical drugs, because here they can hope to get direct benefits. So long as there is some prospect for a direct benefit, they will even tolerate the many new risks that these drugs bring, as documented in clinical trials.
Could genetically engineered crops provide benefits to small farmers in developing countries? They already have done so in significant instances, specifically for small cotton farmers in China and India. China began planting GMO cotton in 1997, and by 2010 roughly 7 million small and resource-poor farmers were growing the crop, with average income gains estimated by Clive James, from the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) at $220 per hectare. India has also done well with GMO cotton. One 2009 study by German-based economists Prakash Sadashivappa and Matin Qaim showed that in India farmers who adopted GMO cotton were able to reduce pesticide sprays by an average of 40 percent and realized yield gains of 30–40 percent, generating increased profits of roughly $60 per acre, even when the higher cost of the seed is taken into account. GMO cotton first became legal to plant in India in 2002, and within 10 years, more than 85 percent of cotton planted in India was GMO. Given these significant gains from GMO cotton, it is anomalous that so many activist groups claim that the technology failed so badly as to drive farmers in India to commit suicide. When the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) investigated these claims in 2008, it found rates of suicide among Indian farmers had not increased following the introduction of GMO cotton in 2002, and it confirmed that there would be no reason to expect such an increase, given the benefit to farmers that the technology was providing. Beyond Bt cotton, it is more difficult to establish the benefits that GMOs might provide to small farmers in the developing world, mostly because it is not yet legal for developing world farmers to plant any GMOs. Most national governments in the developing world decided to follow the European example by setting in place demanding and highly precautionary regulations governing GMOs. Some did this in the belief that European practices were the best practices (this was
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particularly the case for African countries with close post-colonial ties to Europe), and others had been persuaded by activist NGOs that the technology was genuinely dangerous. These same NGOs had earlier promoted the negotiation of an international agreement—the 2000 Cartagena Protocol— governing the import and export of living GMOs (called LMOs). This agreement was modeled after the 1989 Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes, indicating just how suspicious the authors of the protocol were toward agricultural biotechnology. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) was given the lead in helping poor countries to implement the Cartagena Protocol, and it encouraged a European-style precautionary approach. Critics of GMOs complained originally that the technology would be of little value to the developing world because most of the GMO traits on the market (like herbicide tolerance and insect resistance) were developed in corporate labs and incorporated into crops like soybeans or yellow maize grown by large commercial farmers in rich temperate zone countries. Because the seeds had been developed by private companies, they would be too expensive for poor farmers to afford. However, when Golden Rice was developed in 2000 by a noncorporate laboratory, partly funded by the EU itself, and then offered to the developing world free of charge for humanitarian purposes, critics attacked it anyway, simply because it was a GMO. This new rice technology was developed specifically for poor tropical countries, to help reduce vitamin A deficiencies that cause some 250,000 children to go blind each year. Thanks to continuing hostility from critics and tight regulations on field trials in poor countries, Golden Rice as of 2012 was not yet available for commercial planting anywhere in the developing world. In 2013, a U.K. environmentalist named Mark Lynas, who had helped launch the anti-GMO movement in the 1990s, took
the unusual step of apologizing for his activism. Reversing his original views, he now described GMOs as a “desperatelyneeded agricultural innovation” that was being “strangled by a suffocating avalanche of regulations which are not based on any rational scientific assessment of risk.”
14 WHO GOVERNS THE WORLD FOOD SYSTEM?
Is there a single world food system? There is not yet a single centrally governed world food system. Food is still produced and consumed mostly inside separate and separately governed nation-states. International food markets have grown, but international trade still supplies on average only 10 percent of what people eat. One possible advantage of such a fragmented and decentralized system is that no one political authority can disrupt the whole system. The disadvantage is that when international disruptions do occur, no single individual or institution will be fully empowered or equipped to respond. In resistance to globalization, most food around the world continues to be grown, harvested, processed, retailed, and consumed entirely within the borders of individual countries. Ninety percent of processed foods are never traded, along with 79 percent of wheat and 93 percent of rice. This pattern persists, despite the modern era of lower transportation costs, because most countries do not want to depend on other countries for their basic food supply, so they have set in place policies intended to preserve self-sufficiency.
National governments remain the dominant actors in food and farming. They are in a position to take this leading role because of the exclusive legal jurisdiction that they enjoy, as sovereign states, over farms and food markets within their borders. The differing policies that national governments pursue can generate dramatic differences in food outcomes. For example, compare food circumstances today in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. These two states cohabit the same small Caribbean island, yet in poorly governed Haiti 45 percent of all citizens are undernourished, versus just 15 percent in the better-governed Dominican Republic. Or consider North and South Korea, states that share not just a common peninsula but also a common history, national culture, and language. Because the government of South Korea has governed its national economy and its national food system with conspicuous competence over the past half century, chronic undernutrition has virtually disappeared. Because North Korea has governed its economy and food system incompetently, a million or more citizens recently died there in a devastating famine.
How do national governments exercise control? The policy instruments used by governments to shape food and farming systems differ between rich and poor countries. In rich countries, farm sectors receive lavish income subsidies and tax credits for producers, on top of protective restrictions at the border. It is not unusual to find a significant share of total farm income dependent on public policy (18 percent of farm income in the European Union as of 2011, and 52 percent in Japan). Off the farm, food systems in rich countries are heavily shaped by national tax and competition policies (e.g., antitrust) and increasingly by stronger regulatory systems (e.g., regulations for food safety or environmental protection). In poor countries, state interventions in the agricultural production and marketing sector are just as powerful, but they are less likely to be pro-farmer. In developing Asia, the centralized
Who Governs the World Food System?
regulation of river valley irrigation systems has long given the state an instrument to control farming. National programs governing the ownership and distribution of agricultural land (including periodic efforts at redistribution under the slogan of “land reform”) are also a powerful governmental prerogative. State subsidies for fertilizers, pesticides, and electricity for irrigation pumps continue to play a system-shaping role. State-run marketing systems intended to make cheaper commodities available to the poor through fair price shops are common. In much of Africa, state-controlled production and marketing systems were originally created under colonial rule, and today’s successor systems frequently preserve that control, through state-owned seed or chemical companies and “parastatal” marketing institutions that are granted near-monopoly rights by the government. The agricultural sectors in these African countries are more open to import competition and foreign direct investment than in the past, but private investment has lagged due to government restrictions, weak government investments in infrastructure, plus the failure of many governments to maintain rule of law and protect private property.
Which are the most important international organizations in the food and farming sector? Above the level of the nation-state, the institutions of the United Nations system often take actions intended to look like “global governance,” but usually these actions have little impact on core activities within the food and farming sector. For example, when food prices on the international market spiked in 2008, the secretary-general of the United Nations set up a high-level task force on the global food security crisis to produce an “action plan” prescribing an appropriate response. This gave the impression that the United Nations was taking charge, but in fact no new funding or authority was granted to the UN for this purpose, so the high-level task force had
no measurable impact on either food production or consumption, and it posed no threat to national governmental control. Something similar had happened during the earlier world food crisis of 1974, when the UN created a comparably toothless committee on world food security. A more significant international reaction to the 2008 price spike came not from the UN system but instead from the separate national governments of the major economic powers, assembled for summit meetings as the Group of 8 (G8) and the Group of 20 (G20). The G20 was established in 1999 in the wake of the East Asian financial crisis as a means to broaden international consultations beyond the smaller G8 cluster of advanced industrial states. The G20 includes emerging and transitional economic powers such as Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, South Africa, and Turkey. Both the G8 and the G20 meet on a regular basis at the head of state (or “summit”) level, and these become settings in which significant national policy changes or resource commitments can be pursued. After the price spike of 2008, it was at a G8 summit meeting, in July 2009, that the world’s leading powers concluded a financially significant L’Aquila pledge to increase agricultural development assistance. Still, the purpose of the G8 and G20 is to facilitate cooperation among nation-states, not to replace or override those states. For example, when President Nicolas Sarkozy of France attempted in 2011 to use his temporary chairmanship of a G20 Summit to promote reforms in commodity futures trading, biofuels, and export policies, he was effectively blocked by the other major economic powers, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Brazil, and Russia. Some well-established international organizations do influence global food and farming, but no more than the major national powers will allow. One example is the World Trade Organization (WTO), originally created as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) at an international conference in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, in 1944. The
Who Governs the World Food System?
WTO is headquartered in Geneva, where it provides a setting for national governments to negotiate agreements on trade, including agricultural trade. The WTO even has a Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) to adjudicate claims from member governments regarding the non-compliance of others with these international agreements. In the past decade, both the cotton policies of the United States and the sugar and GMO policies of the EU have triggered successful complaints of this kind. Deliberations within the DSB can draw on the findings of one other international institution, the Codex Alimentarius (“food code”) Commission in Rome, a body created by the United Nations in 1963 to develop common global standards for safe food products and fair food trade practices. Because Codex operates by consensus, common global standards have not been achieved in controversial areas such as GMOs. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank are two other international institutions created at Bretton Woods in 1944. They are largely funded by wealthy country governments and are empowered to make sizable loans to governments in developing countries, particularly those facing financial crises or struggling to create a policy environment to support sustained economic growth. The lending conditions imposed by the IMF have typically included market deregulation and an end to inflationary fiscal and monetary policies. The World Bank in the 1960s and 1970s became a significant source of lending for investments in agricultural development, but over the following three decades, it cut lending to agriculture and moved on to other concerns. Following the high world food prices of 2008, the World Bank president, Robert Zoellick, vowed to revive work in the area of agricultural development, and new loans were made, particularly to Africa. The World Bank also became home to the new Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP), created in 2009 at the insistence of the G20, but national governments fell short in the resources contributed to this fund. The IMF and the World Bank are both headquartered in Washington, D.C., and have
traditionally embraced a so-called Washington Consensus that emphasizes the role of free markets and private investments, as opposed to state planning, market controls, and government subsidies. Specific to food and agriculture, there are three “Rome institutions” within the UN system in addition to Codex Alimentarius: IFAD, WFP, and FAO. The youngest of these is the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), established in 1977 to finance development projects focused specifically on food production and rural poverty alleviation. The IFAD is less constrained by the Washington Consensus than either the IMF or the World Bank, but at the same time it has fewer lending resources. A second Rome organization, the UN World Food Programme (WFP), was established in 1961 to manage the delivery of humanitarian food assistance to poor countries and refugee populations. Individual donor governments are still the source of nearly all international food aid, but more than half is now channeled to its destination by the WFP. The oldest and most prominent Rome-based UN institution is the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Founded in 1945, the FAO devotes most of its energy to gathering and distributing information about food and farming around the world. It also provides a forum for nations to meet to set goals, share expertise, and negotiate agreements on agricultural policy. At the FAO, agricultural ministries from member governments are often in the lead, so the organization usually places greater emphasis on food production and the prosperity of farmers than on the nutrition of consumers. Within the United Nations system, nutrition has traditionally been handled by the World Health Organization (WHO). In the area of agricultural technology development and research, the most important international institution is the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), a network of research centers created in 1971 and chaired by the World Bank. The CGIAR eventually expanded into a network of 15 separate international centers, primarily
Who Governs the World Food System?
located in the developing world and funded by government donors and private foundations, plus the World Bank. These centers attempt to extend the legacy of the original green revolution of the 1960s and 1970s by using science to develop improved seeds and more productive and sustainable farming methods in order to help farmers in the developing world.
What has limited the influence of international organizations? The political influence of these international food and agricultural institutions differs case by case. In the 1980s and 1990s, the WTO achieved a measurable success by hosting a “Uruguay Round” of negotiations that produced some reductions in the farm subsidy policies that had been distorting trade. The Agreement on Agriculture that emerged from these negotiations in 1993 required industrial countries to convert non-tariff agricultural border protections to tariffs. The agreement imposed no restriction at all on direct cash payments to farmers, so long as those payments were de-coupled from production incentives. The agreement also prohibited direct export subsidies, but it did nothing to prevent governments from disrupting markets through export bans, which proved to be a larger concern at the time of the 2008 price spike. Following this partly successful Uruguay Round effort, the WTO launched a new Doha Round in 2001, but these negotiations were suspended without any result seven years later, in part because of disagreements between the United States and India over exceptions to disciplines on import restrictions. The negotiations have so far not been revived, in part because higher international commodity prices have reduced the distorting effects of farm subsidy policies and have diminished the urgency of making further subsidy cuts. Even when governments voluntarily accept policy restraints under the WTO, they sometimes fail to comply. For example, in 2005, the United States was told by the Dispute Settlement Body that elements of its cotton subsidy program were illegal
under the 1993 Agreement on Agriculture, but the United States refused at first either to change its policies adequately or to pay compensation. In 2008, the U.S. Congress even passed a new farm bill explicitly preserving some of the WTO-illegal policies. Brazil eventually threatened retaliation in 2010, and the United States responded not by changing its cotton policy but instead by offering compensation payments to cotton growers in Brazil. The final outcome was ironic: United States taxpayers were now paying for cotton subsidies in two countries rather than just one. The IMF and the World Bank had considerable influence over food and farming in the 1980s and 1990s, when they used stabilization agreements, investment loans, and “structural adjustment” loans to shape the price and market environment for farmers in poor developing countries. Yet the policy changes they hoped to induce were sometimes small or just temporary. In 1994, the World Bank completed a study of 29 governments in Sub-Saharan Africa that had undergone structural adjustment and found that 17 of those 29 had reduced the overall tax burden they placed on farming, but some, because of persistently overvalued exchange rates, had actually increased that burden. Only 4 of the 29 had eliminated parastatal marketing boards for major export crops, and none of the 29 had set in place both agricultural and macroeconomic policies that measured up to World Bank standards. Later, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) found that many of the reforms undertaken in response to World Bank pressures were reversed when conditions changed, or in response to external shocks. The World Bank diminished its own influence over agriculture beginning in the 1980s, when it began to cut the total value of its lending in that sector. Between 1978 and 2006, the agricultural share of World Bank lending fell from 30 percent to only 8 percent. In 2005, the World Bank president, Paul Wolfowitz, even admitted in an offhand comment, “My institution’s largely gotten out of the business of agriculture.” To
Who Governs the World Food System?
explain this withdrawal of lending for agriculture, officials at the World Bank claimed that it was the borrowing country governments who had changed their priorities, but priorities at the Bank had changed as well. Structural adjustment lending for policy change was crowding out lending for actual investments in development. Of the three Rome-based UN food organizations, the WFP and IFAD are frequently praised for their work, while the FAO is routinely criticized. The WFP has a proven record of preventing famine, as in the case of the 1991–1992 and 2001–2002 droughts in southern Africa. Although the WFP failed to prevent a famine in southern Somalia in 2011, the reason was blocked access due to the intransigence of an armed jihadist militia group, al Shabaab. The reputation of the FAO for taking effective action is not as strong. In fact, it was international frustration with the FAO during the world food crisis of the 1970s that led to the creation of the IFAD in 1977. The data collection activities of the FAO are highly regarded, and in some niche areas (e.g., the integrated management of crop pests, or IPM), FAO technical advice has been world class, but its operations are heavily dominated by an oversized central bureaucracy. It has received lethargic direction over the years from a string of unresponsive leaders who have held their positions more because of their political friends than their professional competence, a pattern often encountered in UN special agencies. Looking at the budget of the FAO, more than half is spent on headquarters operations within the city of Rome, not in the developing world. In the area of internationally funded agricultural research, the multiple centers of the CGIAR have had a four-decade history of success in developing useful new farm technologies for the developing world. The improved rice varieties originally developed by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) have now been released in more than 77 countries, allowing the world to more than double total rice production since 1965. Twothirds of the developing world’s total area planted to wheat is
now planted to varieties that contain improvements developed by the CGIAR’s International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). Nevertheless, the CGIAR has struggled since the 1990s to maintain adequate donor funding, due partly to complacency among those who thought the world’s food production problems had already been solved, plus hostility from others who rejected a science-driven green revolution approach. The CGIAR’s methods have not always been ideal; too much crop science at the centers is restricted to artificial conditions without being tested in actual farmers’ fields, and too often the new technologies developed never reach the intended beneficiaries. The delivery of useful new production technologies to poor farmers almost always requires partnership with strong research and extension institutions at the national level, and too often in recent years these have been underfunded.
Do multinational corporations control the world food system? Many activists assert that corporations do exercise control, through the monopoly positions they are said to enjoy in key markets and through the corrupting influence they can exercise over national governments. Intergovernmental organizations like the WTO, the IMF, and the World Bank are described by these critics as little more than the global agents of corporate control. Assertions of corporate monopoly in the food sector usually begin with claims that 90 percent of international grain trade goes through the hands of just four private companies: Archer Daniels Midland, Bunge, Cargill, and Louis Dreyfus—known collectively as the ABCD traders. A 2012 study commissioned by the NGO Oxfam described the control of these companies as far-reaching: Through their roles in biofuels investment, large-scale land acquisition, and the financialization of agricultural
Who Governs the World Food System?
commodity markets, the ABCDs are at the forefront of the transformation that is determining where money in agriculture is invested, where agricultural production is located, where the produce is shipped, and how the world’s population shares (or fails to share) the bounty of each harvest. When considering such assessments, it is important to remember that only about 10 percent of world food production ever enters international trade, suggesting limits on the control available to any company that specializes in international trade. Also, despite market concentration, these four trading companies still regularly compete with each other. Finally, those who assert corporate control over grain markets seldom make a consistent argument regarding the impact of that control. Some say that the companies conspire to make international grain prices artificially low (“dumping” surplus production into poor countries), while others blame the companies for driving grain prices artificially high. In reality, grain-trading companies make money whether international prices are high or low, but they do so by skillfully responding to price changes rather than by controlling those changes. Corporate control is also said to derive from seed patents, such as those registered by companies like Monsanto. One important limitation to this argument is that in most countries, especially developing countries, national laws do not allow patent claims on seeds. In addition, many developing world farmers buy no seeds at all, let alone patented seeds. In the Indian Punjab, 74 percent of farmers still plant their own saved seeds, and when Indian farmers do buy seeds, they have 500 private Indian seed companies to turn to, not just multinationals like Pioneer or Monsanto. Meanwhile, national biosafety regulations plus consumer resistance have tightly restricted the spread of patented seeds, even in rich countries that allow patents. For example, there are no patented GMO wheat or rice seeds on the market anywhere, not even in the United States.
In addition, corporate control over markets is weakened by competition. For example, when Monsanto tried to market a new corn seed variety called “Smartstax” in 2010, it overpriced the product and lost market shares to a competitor seed company, DuPont Pioneer. In the end, Monsanto had to reduce its price premium by 67 percent in order to win back customers, and even then it failed to recover market share. The allegation that private food and agribusiness companies exercise influence over national governments by paying bribes does have some foundation. In one sensational exposé in 2012, investigators learned that a subsidiary of Wal-Mart in Mexico had bribed local and national officials as a pathway to building 19 large new stores, sometimes without construction permits. In some cases, Wal-Mart paid nearly a million dollars in bribes per store. In an earlier case, Monsanto was required to pay a $1.5 million fine (to the U.S. Justice Department) for having bribed an Indonesian official in 2002, to get around an environmental impact study on its cotton seeds. In this case, however, the bribe was unsuccessful because the requirement for the study was never waived, and Monsanto’s cotton seeds are still not legal to plant in Indonesia. Even in countries where bribery is common, then, the bribe may not always be corporate control.
How much power do non-governmental organizations have? International non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are influential players within food and farming sectors, especially in the developing world. Some development NGOs work almost exclusively through projects on the ground. For example, Heifer International operates roughly 900 projects in 53 different countries to promote food self-reliance through gifts of livestock and training. Other NGOs work almost exclusively through social mobilization and advocacy. One example is La Via Campesina, an organization founded at a meeting in Belgium in 1993, which advocates action on behalf of small
Who Governs the World Food System?
farmers against globalized agribusiness. Via Campesina comprises about 150 local and national organizations in 70 countries, and it champions an agrarian vision of local control that it calls “food sovereignty.” Greenpeace, an environmental advocacy organization based in Amsterdam, also campaigns against globalization and agribusiness, particularly against genetically engineered crops. Greenpeace claims 2.8 million members worldwide. Consumers International, a global federation of more than 240 advocacy organizations in 120 different countries, promotes consumer food safety. In the areas of food safety and farm technology, advocacy NGOs sometimes succeed in exposing and even blocking behaviors that they dislike. In the 1970s, a network of NGOs accused Nestlé of promoting infant formula products through unethical methods, such as giving away free samples in maternity wards. An NGO-led boycott of Nestlé products, animated by the sensational charge that “Nestlé Kills Babies,” eventually led to a new International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes, which Nestlé pledged to follow in 1984. Also in the 1980s, an international NGO advocacy campaign led by the Pesticides Action Network (PAN) managed to produce an International Code of Conduct on the Distribution and Use of Pesticide, and later a binding international agreement, the Rotterdam Convention. In the 1990s, European-based NGOs spread alarms about genetically engineered crops that led in a few years to a virtual ban on the planting of those crops in Europe and to regulatory blockage in much of the rest of the world as well. In 2013, an activist from the United Kingdom who had participated in the anti-GMO campaigns, but who later changed his mind about the technology and apologized, admitted, “This was the most successful campaign I have ever been involved in.” Not all advocacy NGOs work to block things. In the area of food security, some groups like Bread for the World use information and advocacy campaigns to promote food aid and agricultural development. Others, like Oxfam, combine research
and policy advocacy with actual development projects on the ground (Oxfam calls itself a “do tank”). Still others, like Catholic Relief Services, work almost exclusively delivering humanitarian relief. In the area of agricultural development, however, there are limits to what NGOs from the outside can accomplish on their own. They deliver excellent training and services but are less able to provide the expensive investments in road construction, electricity, irrigation, and agricultural research needed in many of the poorest countries. National governments supported by donor agencies with taxpayerderived resources must take the lead here. International NGOs in food and agriculture often export the concerns of rich countries into the developing world. In areas such as health and human rights, this can be entirely appropriate, but with agricultural technology, the concerns of the rich are not always well matched to the needs of the poor. Agricultural chemical use is clearly excessive in Europe and North America, but most agricultural scientists argue that in Africa fertilizer use needs to be increased. If European or American NGOs carry their campaigns against chemical fertilizer into Africa, where too little is currently in use, they may push local policy in the wrong direction.
What is the role of private foundations? Independently endowed philanthropic foundations such as the Rockefeller Foundation and the Ford Foundation played an essential role in launching Asia’s original green revolution in the 1960s and 1970s. Today it is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that does the most to promote the green revolution cause. The Ford Foundation, with roughly $10 billion in assets, is an important New York–based institution that provided early support to the green revolution in Asia but later moved away from promoting science-dependent approaches to farming. Although the Rockefeller Foundation had assets only one-third
Who Governs the World Food System?
the size of Ford, it was more important in launching the green revolution, and it continued to stress the importance of agricultural science in developing countries long after Ford drifted away from the cause. Then, in 2006, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which had $37 billion in assets, moved decisively into grant-making in agricultural development (adopting Rockefeller as a junior partner), beginning with a $150 million joint venture called the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), chaired by former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan. This initiative centered on an effort to improve the varieties of seed available to small farmers for staple food crops in Africa. By 2012, the Gates Foundation had made grants for agricultural development totaling more than $2 billion. By supporting seed markets, new agricultural science, and a “green revolution,” the Gates Foundation knew that it would be inviting criticism from those in the NGO community who mistrusted this approach. Soon after the foundation announced its new effort, an NGO based in the United States named Food First warned that Bill and Melinda Gates were “naïve about the causes of hunger” and that their efforts would only provide “higher profits for the seed and fertilizer industries, negligible impacts on total food production and worsening exclusion and marginalization in the countryside.” Many in the philanthropic community who are timid about facing hostile NGO criticism continue to shrink away from supporting science-based or market-oriented agricultural development work.
15 THE FUTURE OF FOOD POLITICS
In the future, will obesity continue to replace hunger as the world’s most serious food problem? In terms of the numbers affected, yes. In 2008, according to the World Health Organization, 500 million adults globally over the age of 20 were technically obese. If we add obese children, the total number approaches the 2008 United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimate of the undernourished population, which was 876 million. The global trend toward increased obesity has continued since 2008. Over the most recent two-decade period, the global obesity rate increased by 82 percent, according to a 2012 report from the British medical journal The Lancet. Projecting from current trends, scholars at Tulane University estimate that there will be 1.12 billion obese adults worldwide by 2030. As the total number of obese people continues to increase in the years ahead, the number who are undernourished will almost certainly continue to decline. Already between 1990– 1992 and 2010–2012, according to the FAO, the total number of hungry people on earth declined by 132 million in absolute terms, despite continued global population growth. The percentage of people undernourished worldwide declined from 18.6 percent to 12.5 percent.
The Future of Food Politics
Consistent with this decline in hunger, most new cases of obesity in the years ahead will actually be found in the developing world. The prevalence of obesity is already high in today’s rich countries, and population growth in rich countries is low or even negative, so there is less room for a future obesity increase. In today’s developing and transitional countries, in contrast, populations are larger overall, they are growing much faster, and the prevalence of obesity in these countries is just now beginning its rise. We think of the United States as the nation with the largest obesity problem, but in absolute numbers China has already surpassed the United States, with 100 million obese citizens today compared to 90 million in the United States. Finding an appropriate policy frame for responding to these realities will continue to prove difficult, in part because the obesity threat is still new. Coercive policy measures against obesity will always be problematic because in some cases there are genetic causes and because heavy weight does not always correlate with poor health. Moreover, there are many good reasons for government policies to remain focused on those with too little food rather than too much, since the former usually have fewer options for self-help. Redefining the world’s food problem as obesity rather than hunger thus carries significant ethical risks. In large parts of rural Africa and South Asia, largely due to inadequate public sector investment, hunger remains the dominating food-related concern. In Sub-Saharan Africa today, there are still three times as many underweight preschool children as there are overweight preschoolers, and the absolute number of malnourished people in this region continues to rise, as the population grows while poverty reduction in the countryside continues to lag.
In the future, will food and farming systems become more localized or more globalized? Food and farming are in many ways similar to other modern production and marketing systems. They are driven toward
greater globalization by falling transportation costs, increasing income and consumption demand in previously poor countries, and lower policy barriers toward international investment and trade. Economic competition induces all production systems to cut costs through greater specialization and market exchange. Over time, individual production units shrink in number but grow in size, and products travel greater distances. Market volatility drives production units toward risk reduction through more formally structured or contracted relationships. Yet thanks to competition and continuing innovation, the prices offered to consumers usually decline. In the food sector between 1961 and 2010, the average real international price for cereals, meats, dairy, and sugar products actually declined by 40 percent. In the future, it is unlikely that today’s rich countries will move back toward food systems based less on globalization and more on localization, or based less on specialization and more on diversification. Niche markets for locally grown foods will continue to prosper and expand with purchasing power, and as consumer preferences diversify, but a preponderance of consumers will continue to use the conventional market channels that offer lower cost, greater convenience, and far greater year-round variety. Both poor and transitional countries will become less poor, more urban, and therefore more like today’s rich countries in the way that they produce and consume food. Eating habits worldwide will continue to converge toward common sets of practices, including an increased reliance on foods purchased at supermarkets; increased consumption of packaged and processed foods, frozen foods, meat, eggs, and dairy products; and also year-round consumption of more nutritious fresh fruits and vegetables. One common feature in this convergence will be a wider range of affordable eating choices, both healthy and unhealthy. Different communities and different individuals will make their food choices in different ways, leading to divergent health and nutrition outcomes, but
The Future of Food Politics
the choices available will continue to expand for nearly all. Individual diets will continue to move away from being one’s geographic or economic destiny, toward being instead a result of conscious choice.
In the future, will the spread of affluent eating habits destroy the natural environment? The answer is yes, unless food production systems evolve rapidly toward less dependence on land, water, and chemical inputs and toward reduced dependence on natural systems such as wild fisheries. Politically fractious debates will nonetheless continue over how—and how far—modern food production systems should evolve in this direction. Productivity skeptics will call instead for more austere eating habits, including moves away from the heavy consumption of meat and animal products, and an abandonment of food production systems based on highly specialized industrial-scale operations. But commercial farming will continue to evolve in that direction. Optimists (who would call themselves realists) will doubt the inclination of most people to move toward a vegetarian diet voluntarily, and they will not want governments to have license to coerce such an outcome. They will put more faith in the ability of agricultural science to provide ways to grow more food, and also more feed for animals, even while using less land, less water, and fewer chemicals. They point to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) showing that in the United States, since 1982, total farm output has increased roughly 40 percent, while annual fertilizer, herbicide, and insecticide use has actually declined. They observe that since 1980 in the United States, total corn production has doubled, while land use per bushel has declined by 30 percent and energy use per bushel has declined by 43 percent. Regulation has played only a small role in these gains; the secret has been technical improvements driven by market competition, for example,
no-till farming, the use of GPS systems, and new crops that self-protect against insects. What worries the optimists is a lag in the research investments needed to ensure that the pace of innovation will continue, especially within the less productive tropical farming systems of South Asia and Africa. All agricultural systems face highly localized challenges that can only be met through investments in local innovation. Inadequate external support for agricultural research in the poor countries of Africa, plus accelerating climate change, presents a daunting challenge. The environmental price of failing to improve Africa’s lowyield farming systems will be more cutting of trees, more soil nutrients mined, more fragile lands plowed and ruined, and more wildlife habitat destroyed to accommodate a relentless spread of low-yield farming, as population continues to increase. The global spread of more lavish eating habits will directly threaten the world’s wild ocean fisheries. Increasingly affluent consumers in Asia will demand more fish. China, the world’s largest seafood consumer, continues to expand its long-range fishing fleet at a time when 87 percent of global fisheries are already considered fully exploited, overexploited, or depleted. This growing threat to wild fish populations can be reduced through the production of more “farmed” fish, both in and away from saltwater, but making aquaculture environmentally sustainable and politically acceptable is still an unsolved problem. Larger investments in research and innovation may provide answers, but the skeptics will balk, wishing instead that we would only consume less.
In the future, will the politics of food remain contentious? Yes, and it may become even more contentious. Political debates over farm policy have already moved beyond material questions, such as who owns the land or who gets the biggest subsidies, to questions of contested values, such as what a rural
The Future of Food Politics
landscape should look like. Should farms be large-scale and specialized, or small-scale and diversified? Organic and local, or high-tech and global? Such questions will become more contentious as the number of people who actually make their living from farming continues to decline. Increasingly, it will be non-farmers without a livelihood stake in crop or livestock production who set the terms of the debate. They will bring to the table a wider range of values and motives, often divergent from those that have traditionally dominated the sector. The hard-fought distributional politics of protecting or expanding producer subsidies will continue, but it will increasingly be supplemented by a new “hard-felt” politics over what kind of farming is humane, sustainable, and just. At the consumption end, a similar transition will take place. As food becomes increasingly safe to eat, increasingly affordable, and abundant in endless variety year-round, the concerns of consumers will also move away from issues of cost or safety toward less material concerns, including those driven by ethics and culture. In this realm of ethics and culture, advocates for the status quo will always be on the defensive. It will never be enough for them to show that the present is better than the past. Ordinary producers and consumers in the marketplace might be comfortable with the trends they see in today’s food and farm systems, but cultural critics and opinion leaders will continue to imagine and promote more attractive, or seemingly more attractive, alternatives. The result could be a growing divergence between actual commercial outcomes and the stated preferences of cultural elites. As food systems become more globalized, leaders in the cultural marketplace will continue calling for a return to local food. As modern farms continue to specialize and grow in size, cultural leaders will continue to champion a return to smaller and more diversified farms. Will it be possible, in the future, for one set of trends in the commercial arena to coexist with an opposing set of preferences in the cultural arena? It usually falls to political leaders
to resolve such tensions, typically through efforts to please both sides. In democratic systems such as the United States, the outcome in the governmental arena—so far—has been to allow food and farming systems to continue their evolution toward a larger scale, more specialization, and more internationalization, so as to continue serving consumer demands for cost savings, variety, and convenience. Industry lobbies that favor these trends have continued to hold the upper hand, and most ordinary voters seem comfortable with these trends as well. A majority of elected leaders have therefore decided, for now, not to use their tax and regulatory powers to force farming back toward a smaller, more local, more diverse, or less science-based model. They have also concluded, for now, that voters and campaign contributors will punish any attempt to reduce the range of eating choices currently enjoyed by citizens, no matter how unhealthy some of those choices might be. This is what food politics has given us for the moment, but as the twenty-first century continues to unfold, the political equilibrium of the moment will, of course, be subject to change.
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING
Food Production and Population Growth Bremer, Jason. Population and Food Security: Africa’s Challenge. Population Reference Bureau, Policy Brief, 2012. Conway, Gordon. One Billion Hungry: Can We Feed the World? Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2012. Diamond, Jared. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. New York: Penguin, 2005. Falcon, Walter P., and Rosamond L. Naylor. “Rethinking Food Security for the 21st Century.” American Journal of Agricultural Economics 87, no. 5 (2005): 1113–1127. Lappé, Frances Moore, and Joseph Collins. Diet for a Small Planet. New York: Ballantine Books, 1971. Malthus, Thomas Robert. An Essay on the Principle of Population. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Paddock, William, and Paul Paddock. Famine, 1975! America’s Decision: Who Will Survive? Boston: Little, Brown, 1967. United Nations. World Population Prospects 2002: Analytical Report. New York: United Nations, 2004. World Bank. World Development Report 2008: Agriculture for Development. Washington, DC: World Bank, 2007.
The Politics of High Food Prices Fan, Shenggen. Halving Hunger: Meeting the First Millennium Development Goal through “Business as Usual.” Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute, 2010. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. FAO: Hunger Portal. http://www.fao.org/hunger/en/. Mitchell, Donald O., Merlinda D. Ingco, and Ronald C. Duncan. World Food Outlook. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Pardey, P. G., J. M. Alston, and R. R. Piggott, eds. Agricultural R&D in the Developing World: Too Little, Too Late? Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute, 2006. United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service. Food Security Assessment, 2010–20. Outlook Report No. GFA-21, Agriculture and Trade Reports. Washington, DC: United States Department of Agriculture, 2010. Von Braun, Joachim. Responding to the World Food Crisis: Getting on the Right Track. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute, 2008. The Politics of Chronic Hunger Akhter, U. Ahmed, Ruth Vargas Hill, Lisa C. Smith, Doris M. Wiesmann, and Tim Frankenberger. The World’s Most Deprived: Characteristics and Causes of Extreme Poverty and Hunger. 2020 Discussion Paper 43. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute, 2007. Kotz, Nick. Hunger in America: The Federal Response. New York: Field Foundation, 1979. Lipton, Michael. Why Poor People Stay Poor: Urban Bias in World Development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977. Oxfam International. Causing Hunger: An Overview of the Food Crisis in Africa. Briefing Paper 91. Oxford, UK: Oxfam, 2006. Sachs, Jeffrey D., John McArthur, Guido Schmidt-Traub, Margaret Kruk, Chandrika Bahadur, Michael Faye, and Gordon McCord. “Ending Africa’s Poverty Trap.” Brookings Papers on Economic Activity 1 (2004): 117–240.
Smith, Lisa C., and Lawrence Haddad. Overcoming Child Malnutrition in Developing Countries, Discussion Paper 30 (February). Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute, 2000. Thurow, Roger. The Last Hunger Season: A Year in an African Farm Community on the Brink of Change. New York: Public Affairs, 2012. United States Department of Agriculture. Household Food Security in the United States 2011. Economic Research Report ERR-141. 2012. The Politics of Famine Becker, Jasper. Hungry Ghosts: Mao’s Secret Famine. New York: Holt, 1998. Conquest, Robert. Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror Famine. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. Grada, Cormac O. Famine: A Short History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009. Haggard, Stephan, and Marcus Noland. Famine in North Korea: Markets, Aid, and Reform. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009. Natsios, Andrew. The Great North Korean Famine. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2002. Sen, Amartya. Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation. New York: Oxford University Press, 1983. The Green Revolution Controversy Altieri, Miguel. Agroecology: The Science of Sustainable Agriculture. 2nd ed. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995. Evenson, R. E., and D. Gollin. “Assessing the Impact of the Green Revolution, 1960 to 2000.” Science 300 (May 2003): 758–762. Hayami, Yujiro, and Vernon W. Ruttan. Agricultural Development: An International Perspective. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985. Hazell, Peter, and Lawrence Haddad. Agricultural Research and Poverty Reduction. Food, Agriculture, and Environment Discussion Paper 34. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute, 2001. Hazell, Peter, C. Ramasamy, and P. K. Aiyasamy. The Green Revolution Reconsidered. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991.
International Assessment of Agricultural Science, Technology, and Development. Executive Summary of Synthesis Report, 2008. http:// www.agassessment.org/docs/IAASTD_exec_summary_JAN_2008. pdf. Juma, Calestous. The New Harvest: Agricultural Innovation in Africa. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. Pingali, Prabhu L. “Green Revolution: Impacts, Limits, and the Path Ahead.” PNAS 109, no. 31 (2012): 12302–12308. Ruttan, Vernon W. “Controversy about Agricultural Technology: Lessons from the Green Revolution.” International Journal of Biotechnology 6, no. 1 (2004): 43–54. Williams, Robert G. Export Agriculture and the Crisis in Central America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986. Food Aid, Food Power, and Development Assistance Barrett, Christopher B., Andrea Binder, and Julia Steets, eds. Uniting on Food Assistance: The Case for Transatlantic Cooperation. New York: Routledge, 2012. Barrett, Christopher B., and Daniel G. Maxwell. Food Aid after Fifty Years: Recasting Its Role. New York: Routledge, 2005. Bertini, Catherine, and Dan Glickman. 2012 Progress Report on U.S. Leadership in Global Agricultural Development. Chicago Council on Global Affairs, 2012. Hanrahan, Charles E. International Food Aid Provisions of the 2008 Farm Bill. Congressional Research Service Report for Congress, July 10, 2008. Paarlberg, Robert. Food Trade and Foreign Policy: India, the Soviet Union, and the United States. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985. The Politics of Obesity Institute of Medicine. Accelerating Progress in Obesity: Solving the Weight of the Nation. Washington, DC, 2012. Kessler, David A. The End of Overeating. Emmaus, PA: Rodale Press, 2009.
Ludwig, David S. “Childhood Obesity—The Shape of Things to Come.” New England Journal of Medicine 357, no. 23 (2007): 2325–2327. Oliver, J. Eric. Fat Politics: The Real Story behind America’s Obesity Epidemic. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Popkin, Barry. The World Is Fat. New York: Penguin, 2008. Sassi, Franco. Obesity and the Economics of Prevention: Fit Not Fat. Paris: OECD, 2010. Smil, Vaclav, and Kazuhiko Kobayashi. Japan’s Dietary Transition and Its Impacts. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012. The Politics of Farm Subsidies and Trade Anderson,
Incentives: Progress, Pitfalls, Prospects.” American Journal of Agricultural Economics 88, no. 5 (2006): 1135–1146. Deere, Carolyn, and Daniel Esty, eds. Greening the Americas. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002. Food First. Food Sovereignty: A Right for All—Political Statement of the NGO/ CSO Forum for Food Sovereignty. Oakland, CA: Food First, June 14, 2002. Gardner, Bruce L. American Agriculture in the Twentieth Century: How It Flourished and What It Cost. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002. Honma, Masayoshi, and Yujiro Hayami. “The Determinants of Agricultural Protection Level: An Econometric Analysis.” In The Political Economy of Agricultural Protection, edited by Kym Anderson and Yujiro Hayami. Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1986. Orden, David, Robert Paarlberg, and Terry Roe. Policy Reform in American Agriculture: Analysis and Prognosis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999. Paarlberg, Robert. Fixing Farm Trade: Policy Options for the United States. New York: HarperCollins, 1987. Tracy, Michael. Government and Agriculture in Western Europe 1880–1988. 3rd ed. New York: New York University Press, 1989.
Livestock, Meat, and Fish Ausbel, Jesse H., Iddo K. Wernick, and Paul E. Waggoner. “Peak Farmland and the Prospect for Land Sparing.” Population and Development Review 38, supplement, 2012. http://phe.rockefeller .edu/docs/PDR.SUPP%20Final%20Paper.pdf. Burney, Jennifer, Steven Davis, and David Lobell. “Greenhouse Gas Mitigation by Agricultural Intensification.” PNAS, 107, no. 26 (2010): 12052–12057. Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962. Cline, William. Global Warming and Agriculture: Impact Estimates by Country. Washington, DC: Peterson Institute, 2007. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The State of the World’s Land and Water Resources for Food and Agriculture. Rome: FAO, 2011. Masson, Jeffrey. The Face on Your Plate: The Truth about Food. New York: W. W. Norton, 2009. Nelson, Gerald C., et al. Climate Change: Impact on Agriculture and Costs of Adaptation. Washington, DC: IFPRI, 2009. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Environmental Performance of Agriculture in OECD Countries since 1990. Paris, 2008. www.oecd.org/tad/env/indicators. Paarlberg, Robert. Countrysides at Risk: The Political Geography of Sustainable Agriculture. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996. Pew Trusts. Sustainable Marine Aquaculture. Report of the Marine Aquaculture Task Force, Tacoma Park, MD, 2007. Smaling, Eric, Moctar Toure, Nico de Ridder, Nteranya Sanginga, and Henk Breman. Fertilizer Use and the Environment in Africa: Friends or Foes? Background paper, African Fertilizer Summit. Abjua, Nigeria, June 9–13, 2006. Steinfield, Henning, Pierre Gerber, Tom Wassenaar, Vincent Castel, and Mauricio Rosales. Livestock’s Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and
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USDA. “Local Food Systems: Concepts, Impacts, and Issues.” ERS Report 97, May 2010. Vogt, G. “The Origins of Organic Farming.” In Organic Farming: An International History, edited by W. Lockeretz, 9–29. CABI, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom, 2008. Williamson, Claire. “Is Organic Food Better for Our Health?” Nutrition Bulletin 32, no. 2 (2007): 104–108. Winter, Carl K., and Sarah F. Davis. “Organic Foods.” Journal of Food Science 7, no. 9 (2006): 117–124. Food Safety and Genetically Engineered Food Brookes, Graham, and Peter Barfoot. GM Crops: The Global Socioeconomic and Environmental Impact—The First Nine Years 1996–2004. Dorchester, UK: PG Economics, October 2005. Huang, J., R. Hu, C. Fan, C. E. Pray, and S. Rozelle. “Bt Cotton Benefits, Costs, and Impacts in China,” AgBioForum 5 no. 4 (2002): 153–166. http://www.agbioforum.org. James, Clive. Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops. ISAAA Brief 39. Ithaca, NY: International Service for the Acquisition of Agribiotech Applications, 2008. Jasanoff, Sheila. Designs on Nature: Science and Democracy in Europe and the United States. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005. Mead, Paul S., Laurence Slutsker, Vance Dietz, Linda F. McCaig, Joseph S. Bresee, Craig Shapiro, Patricia M. Griffin, and Robert V. Tauxe. FoodRelated Illness and Death in the United States. Atlanta, GA: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2000. http://www.cdc.gov/ ncidod/eid/v015n05/mead.htm. Otsuki, Tsunehiro, John Wilson, and Mirvat Sewadeh. “Saving Two in a Billion: A Case Study to Quantify the Trade Effects of European Food Safety Standards on African Exports.” Washington, DC: World Bank, DECRG, 2001.
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adulteration, of food, 187 Africa, 1, 111, 207. See also specific regions of Africa agribusiness in, 157, 158–59 agricultural development assistance to, 41, 62–63, 79 cash crops in, 126 cereal yields in, 15, 47, 58, 73–74
green revolution and, 66–67, 73–75 infrastructure in, 66–67, 74 international markets and, 22–23 investments in, 24–26 irrigation in, 61, 63, 66, 74, 135–36 land grabs in, 24–26
eco-Malthusians in, 14–15
meat consumption in, 17
environmental damage caused
organic farming in, 176
by agriculture in, 117 famines in, 42
productivity of land and labor in, 41
farm technologies in rural, 75
rural, 34–35, 75
female-headed households, 34
supermarkets in, 161
fertilizer use in, 127
undernutrition in, 31, 41, 75
FEWS in, 47
U.S. agricultural research in,
fish consumption in, 149
food aid in, 51
vegetarianism in, 17, 140
GMOs in, 196, 203
Wal-Mart in, 162–63
Agreement on Agriculture, 211
Arab Spring, 24, 35
agribusiness, 153–54, 216, 217
consumer control, 159–60 control over farmers, 155–59 controversies, 154–55 monopoly power of, 159–60
Asia, 12–13. See also specific regions of Asia agricultural modernization in, 79
Agricultural Adjustment Act, 102
aquaculture industry in, 151
Agricultural Committees, 105, 106
consumption growth in, 19,
agricultural societies, 1–2. See also specific societies agroecology, 75–80
138, 149 famine in, 42 fast-food restaurants in, dietary
and cultural impact of,
aid. See food aid
Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, 66–67, 219 Alteiri, Miguel, 76 American Beverage Association, 95, 98 American Farm Bureau Federation, 106 American Veterinary Medical Association, 144 anemia, 33 Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, 193 animals. See livestock; meat and dairy Annan, Kofi, 219
fish consumption, 149 government control, 206–7 green revolution in, 64, 65, 67, 70–74, 218 hunger in, 67–69 meat consumption, 138 policy action to combat obesity, 93, 94 poverty reduction, 71 productivity of land and labor in, 41 street food, 163–64 supermarkets in, 161 Australia, 110, 135, 193 authoritarian states, 2, 4
antibiotics, 146, 147 Applied & Environmental Microbiology, 146 aquaculture industry, 151–52
backyard gardening, 168 Bangladesh, 34, 43, 62 Ban Ki-moon, 27
Calgene Company, 192
contamination of, 185
grass-fed, 132, 145–46
Bengal famine (1943), 42, 44, 45
count on menus, 97, 98
deficit, 31–32, 34
beverages, sweetened, 87, 95,
intake, 24, 38, 67, 68, 84–87, 89,
96–98 Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, 66, 219
99 Cameroon, 23 Canada, 82, 199
biodiversity, 66, 123
biodynamic farming, 166, 167
cargo preference, 53
biofuel, 19, 26–28
Bittman, Mark, 7–8, 120
Carson, Rachel, 119, 120, 121,
blood pressure, 83
Bloomberg, Michael R., 96–98, 180
Carter, Jimmy, 57
body mass index, 81
cash crops, 125–26
Borlaug, Norman, 65
Catholic Relief Services, 218
Bosch, Carl, 167
CDC. See Centers for Disease
Brazil, 12, 39–40, 113, 163, 195, 212 cotton exports, 111 no-till farming, 78 obesity in, 82 undernutrition in, 33 British Food Standards Agency, 171–72 Burger King, 88, 155 Burundi, 34 Bush, George W., 52–53, 103, 105
Control and Prevention Center for Consumer Freedom, 90, 98 Center for Science and the Public Interest, 97 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 38, 83, 91, 184–85 Central America, 14, 34, 66, 125–26 cereal yields, 15, 47, 58, 73–74, 79
CAFO. See concentrated animal feeding operations Cairo, 24
CGIAR. See Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research
children, 16 caloric intake, 84 marketing to, 88–89 meat consumption, 138–39 obesity and, 82, 87–88, 94, 95–96 undernutrition, 33–34, 36 China, 113, 163. See also Great Leap Forward famine (1959–1961) aquaculture industry, 151 economic growth in, 20, 165 ethanol produced in, 26 fish consumption, 150 food safety, 189–90 GMOs in, 196, 202 green revolution in, 68, 80 McDonald’s in, 164 meat consumption, 139
Codex Alimentarius Commission in Rome, 209–10 Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (Diamond), 14 Columbus, Christopher, 69 commercial farming. See large scale farming committee-based logroll, 7, 106 Committee on World Food Security, 208 Commodity Futures Modernization Act, 19–20 common property resource, 124–25 community supported agriculture, 176 Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme, 75
obesity in, 220–21
ConAgra Foods, Inc., 155
one-child policy, 16
concentrated animal feeding
undernutrition, 33 cholesterol levels, 83 Clean Water Act, 147 climate change, 224 food production and, 128–30, 131–33
operations (CAFO), 118, 132, 142 environmental damage and, 147–48 opposition to, 145–48 welfare of animals and, 143–45
local food and, 181–82
Conquest, Robert, 43
Conservation Reserve, 106
Clinton, Bill, 19–20, 53, 115, 128, 139 Club of Rome, 14
consolidation, of farms, 101, 102–3 Consultative Group on International Agricultural
Research (CGIAR), 57–59, 131, 210–11, 213–14 consumer, 1–2, 7, 23 control over, 159–60 education, 90, 93 rejection of GMOs, 198–200, 201 consumption, food, 19, 225. See also calorie
multinational, 214–16 corporate villains, 154 Costco Wholesale Corporation, 21 cotton, 111, 125–26, 212 Bt, 192, 202, 216 crisis, food, 18, 19, 20–23, 62. See also price spike crop. See also specific crops
cash v. food, 125–26
fish, 149, 150–51
Malthusians and, 17
meat, 17, 30, 132, 133, 138–40,
livestock v., 137
141–42 trends, 29–30, 130
rotation, 75, 77, 174 cultural imperialism, 164
contamination, 145–46, 185–87 conventional farms, 8, 174
environment and, 175
dairy. See meat and dairy
food safety and, 191
Davis, John H., 153
integrated strategies, 77–78
Davis, Sarah F., 173
organic v., 171–73
dead zone, 118, 127
Convention on International
death, 9–10, 40
Trade in Endangered Species,
from famine, 41, 42, 45, 47–48
from food-borne illness,
Conway, Gordon, 79 corn, 5, 11, 30, 109–10
184–86 deep ecology, 116
Delhaize America, 90–91
price of, 18, 26–27
democratic societies, 2–3, 226. See
production, 21, 86, 114–15 sweeteners, 86, 87
also specific societies food aid and, 44–45
corn-based ethanol, 26, 107–10
developed countries. See rich
GMOs and, 198–200
developing countries, 130, 218, 222. See also specific countries agribusiness control in, 157, 158–59 agricultural modernization in, 79
urban agriculture in, 180 urban populations in, 34–35, 68 development assistance, agricultural, 41, 219 agencies, 60–61 beneficiaries, 61–63
agricultural research, 224
dollar value of, 78–79
cash crops v. food crops in,
food aid v., 57–59
125–26 climate change impact on, 129–30 common property systems, 124–25 economic growth rates, 41 environmental damage caused by agriculture, 116–17 farm subsidies and, 101, 110–11 farm technologies for, 58
international breadth of, 59–60 diabetes, 83 Diamond, Jared, 14 diet, 13, 68. See also specific diets Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 90 Diet for a Small Planet (Lappé), 17 Dispute Settlement Body, 209, 211–12
fast-food restaurants in, 163–65
Doha Round, 112–13, 211
food prices in, 18
Dominican Republic, 206
GMOs in, 199, 202–4
drought, 18, 42–43, 46, 47, 62,
government control in, 206–7 meat consumption in rich
109–10 dust bowl, 119–20
countries to impact, 141–42 NAFTA and, 113–15
Earthbound Farm, 170
organic farming in, 77
Earth in the Balance (Gore), 79
policy intervention in, 39–41
East Asia. See also specific places
productivity growth rate in, 80
cereal yields, 58
supermarkets in, 160–62
food aid in, 50
hunger in, 41
trade barriers, 112 undernutrition in, 33–34
EBT cards, 37. See also Food Stamp program
E. coli, 173, 185, 188 eco-Malthusians, 14–15 economic growth, 20, 29, 41, 138, 150, 160, 162, 163, 165 Egypt, 24, 35 Ehrlich, Paul R., 13 Endangered Species Act, 128 The End of Food (Roberts), 120 Energy Independence and Security Act (2007), 108
population growth and, 13–14, 125 poverty and, 124–25 environmentalists, 118–20 Environmental Protection Agency, 119, 193 An Essay on the Principle of Population (Malthus), 9 Estonia, 12 ethanol, 86
energy use, 122
corn-based, 26, 107–10
environment, 13–14. See also
subsidies and, 26, 107–8
climate change; water affluent eating habits and, 223–24 conventional farms and, 175
sugar-based, 110 ethics and culture, 225 Ethiopia, 42, 43, 46, 56, 61–62
corn-based ethanol and, 108–10
ethnic minorities, 34
green revolution and, 71–73
EU. See European Union
organic farming and, 173–75
Europe, 7–8, 12. See also specific
precision farming and, 121–23 regulation, 127–28 sustainable farming and, 118–21 environmental damage agricultural, 116–18, 120–21
places in Europe environmental damage caused by agriculture, 117 famine in, 42 farm subsidies in, 3, 100, 102, 104–5, 111–13
CAFOs and, 147–48
fish consumption, 150–51
cash crops/export crops and,
food aid in, 50
125–26 farm subsidies and, 108–10, 126–28 popular explanations for, 123–25
GMO regulations, 194, 201 meal preparation in, 92 meat consumption, 138 NGOs, 217 obesity in, 81, 92
Europe (Cont.) organic food movement in, 167–68, 171–72 policy action to combat obesity, 93, 94 slow food movement, 182 vegetarian diet in, 140 European Union (EU)
coping strategies, 46 death from, 41, 42, 45, 47–48 ending, 45–46 in history, 42–44 international response to, 46–48 non democratic societies and, 43–45
food price in, 86
food safety, 190
price of food and, 43, 44
GMO regulations, 193, 194–95 livestock regulations, 145 renewable energy directive, 26 Evenson, Robert, 65 exchange entitlement, 44 exclusive economic zone, 150 expectation, 44 exports, 18, 19, 30. See also specific crops bans on, 20–21, 28–29, 57 environmental damage and, 125–26 manipulation of, 57 tax, 20–21
UN criteria for, 41–42 Famine 1975! (Paddock, W. & Paddock, P.), 13 famine early warning system (FEWS), 47 FAO. See Food and Agriculture Organization Fargioine, Joe, 109 farm bill, 7, 105–7 farmer(s), 2–3. See also income, farm agribusiness control over, 155–59 average value added per, 41 in food aid recipient countries,
Family Grants, 39
family planning, 12, 15, 16
green revolution and, 66
famine, 4, 9–10, 11. See also specific
political power, 103–4, 116–17
famines causes of, 42–45, 48
farmers’ markets, 170, 177, 178 farming. See also production,
chronic undernutrition v., 41–42
food; specific methods of
conflict and, 43, 46
environmental damage due to, 116–18, 120–21
precision farming and, 121–22 runoff, 117, 118, 120, 121, 127
integrated strategies, 77
synthetic nitrogen, 166–68, 174,
water management in, 134–36 farm lobby, 7, 105–7, 127–28 farm subsidies, 3, 51, 100
175 FEWS. See famine early warning system
caloric intake and, 85–86
financial crisis, 18
in developing countries, 101,
fiscal cliff, 107
110–11 environmental damage and, 108–10, 126–28
fish and fisheries, 224 consumption, 149, 150–51 farming, 151–52
industrialization and, 101–2
nutrition and, 148–49
renewal process, 105–7
survival and, 102–3
wild, 149–51, 223
targeting and cutting, 103–5
FlavrSavr tomato, 192
trade and, 110–11, 113–15
flooding, 43, 44
WTO and, 111–13
Florida Everglades, 118, 128
Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side
of the All-American Meal
movement, 3, 7–8
fast-food restaurants. See also specific fast-food restaurants access to, 88, 91–92 in developing countries, 163–65 obesity and, 87–88 Feed the Future, 61
politics, 1–7 Food, Inc., 154 food aid, 13, 44–45. See also specific recipient countries agricultural development assistance v., 57–59
fertility, 12, 15, 16, 17
cargo preference, 53
fertilizers, 15, 19, 126, 131
excessive use of, 117
delivery and timing of, 46, 56
green revolution and, 65–66
dependence on, 51, 55–56
FAO on, 47, 50
food aid (Cont.) foreign policy objectives and, 50, 51 governments seeking coercive power from, 56–57
Food Stamp program (SNAP), 37–38, 39, 105, 107 restrictions, 97–98 Ford Foundation, 64, 218–19 fossil fuels, 109, 132
locally purchased, 52–53
fragile land, 123–24
monetization of, 53–54
France, 42, 92, 94, 126, 160
recipients, 50–52, 54–56, 57–58
Fuglie, Keith, 80
refusal to accept, 48
surplus production and, 51–52 USDA spending, 55 U.S. policies, 50, 51–54 WFP and, 47, 49, 50–51 Food and Agriculture
G8 meeting, 59–60, 208 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, 111, 208–9 genetically modified organisms (GMO), 79, 80, 122, 192, 215
Organization (FAO), 21–22,
65, 71, 131–32, 210, 213, 220
consumer rejection of, 198–200,
on food aid, 47, 50
on land grabs in Africa, 25–26
corporate control and, 198–200
on undernutrition, 32–33
Food and Drug Administration, 155, 188–89
in developing countries, 199, 202–4
Food Card program, 39, 40
food safety and, 200–201
Food First, 67
hunger and, 202–4
Food Outbreak Response
labeling, 194–95, 199–200
Coordinating Group, 188 Food Safety and Inspection Service, 188–89 Food Sovereignty, 217 food spending personal, 89–90, 92, 104 USDA, 55
patents and, 156, 198–99 regulations, 193–95, 201 resistance to, 195, 196–98, 201, 217 Ghana, 34 Global Agriculture and Food Security Program, 61, 209
global governance, 207–11. See also world food system
NGOs and, 78–80 rural inequality and, 69–71
globalization, 8, 205, 221–23, 225
rural infrastructure and, 66–67
GMO. See genetically modified
seed varieties, 64–65, 74
organisms Goldberg, Ray, 153
small farms v. large farms, 70–71
Golden Rice, 192, 203
subsidies and, 71
Gore, Al, 79, 128
sustainable path, 78
government control, 205–7 Great Depression (1930s), 36, 102 Great Leap Forward famine (1959–1961), 4, 42, 43–44, 45 Greece, 92
Grocery Manufacturers Association, 90 G20 summit, 61, 208 Guiding Stars, 90–91 Gulf of Mexico, 118, 127
Greenberg, Paul, 149 greenhouse gas emissions, 122–23, 128, 133, 181 livestock as responsible for, 131–32
Haber, Fritz, 167 Haiti, 23, 114–15, 206 Hard Tomatoes, Hard Times (Hightower), 154
Harvest of Sorrow (Conquest), 43
Hayami, Yujiro, 102
green revolution, 13, 218
Hazard Analysis Critical Control
agroecological farming v., 78–80 alternative approaches, 75–78 controversies of, 65–67
Point, 187 health care costs, 82, 83, 93 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, 95–96
critics, 65–67, 73, 75–78, 79
Hess, Rudolf, 167
high fructose corn syrup, 86, 87
environment and, 71–73
Hightower, Jim, 154, 159
food production and, 64, 65, 67,
high-yield agriculture, 118, 119
68, 73, 75–78
Himmler, Heinrich, 167
hunger and, 67–69
international policy and, 78–80
Honma, Masayoshi, 102
Howard, Albert, 168
illness, food-borne, 184–86
Humane Society of the United
IMF. See International Monetary
States, 144 Hundred Years War (1337–1453), 42
Fund imports, food. See also specific food imports
average tariff applied to, 111
hunger. See also undernutrition;
farmed fish, 152
restrictions, 23, 86, 101, 190
decline in, 220–21
of staple foods, 5, 114
defining and measuring, 31–32
urban dependence on, 23
ethnic minorities and, 34 GMOs and, 202–4 green revolution and, 67–69 interventions, 37, 39–41
income, farm, 67, 107 transfer, 100–101 India, 113, 127. See also specific places in India
Malthus on, 9–10
economic growth in, 165
meat consumption and, 17,
export restraints, 20–21
famines in, 11, 42
medical consequences of, 31
fertility trends in, 12
organic food and, 175–76
food aid in, 13, 44–45, 50, 51, 56
political unrest and, 35–36
GMOs in, 196, 202
poverty and, 34
green revolution in, 64–65, 66,
power of, 35–36
67–68, 73, 80
price spike and, 21–23
McDonald’s in, 164–65
rural v. urban, 34–35, 36, 40
sterilization policy, 16
Hurricane Floyd, 147–48
subsidy programs, 40
Hurricane Katrina, 120
undernutrition, 34, 69 vegetarian diet in, 140
Wal-Mart in, 162–63
IFAD. See International Fund for
water use, 72
indigenous knowledge, 66, 75–76
IFPRI. See International Food
Indo-Gangetic Plains, 78
Policy Research Institute
Indonesia, 12, 72, 127, 163
industrialization, 2–3 farm subsidies and, 101–2 of organic food, 170
International Monetary Fund (IMF), 209–10, 212 international organizations,
infant mortality, 40
207–14. See also specific
infrastructure. See rural
infrastructure insecurity, food, 38–39 insurance plan, 98 integrated pest management, 174 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 129, 131 International Assessment of
International Rice Research Institute, 70, 213–14 investments, foreign, 8, 19, 24–26, 58–59, 61, 130, 224 Ireland, 81 Irish potato famine (1845–1849), 11, 42, 43, 45 iron triangle, 106
Science and Technology for
irrigation, 14, 61, 63, 66, 68, 70–72,
Development, 76, 120 International Code of Conduct on
74, 75, 136 mismanaged, 117
the Distribution and Use of
waste prevention, 134–35
water shortage and, 133–34
International Conference on Population in Mexico City, 16 International Development Association, 61 International Food and Agribusiness Management Association, 153–54 International Food Policy
Jackson, Wes, 119 James, Clive, 202 Japan farm subsidies in, 3, 100–101, 102 fish consumption, 150–51 food price in, 86
Research Institute (IFPRI), 17,
33, 58, 71, 129, 142, 202, 212
obesity in, 82, 94
International Fund for
Jaramillo, Mauricio, 67
Jikun Huang, 68
(IFAD), 210, 213
Johnson, D. Gale, 110
Johnson, Lyndon, 56 The Jungle (Sinclair), 155 junk food, 2, 163. See also fast-food restaurants
agricultural modernization in, 79 green revolution in, 64, 67, 69–70, 71–74
meat consumption, 138
obesity and, 87–88
supermarkets in, 160
price, 86 tax, 94, 95, 97 Just Label It, 200
undernutrition in, 33 Leningrad famine (1941–1944), 42, 43 Let’s Move campaign, 96
Keane, Kevin, 98 Kenya, 34, 125
Let’s Prevent Obesity in Children program, 94
Kessler, David, 88
life cycle analysis, 132
Kids LiveWell nutrition
life expectancy, 10, 13, 32, 82
standards, 87 Kissinger, Henry, 29 Know Your Farmers, Know Your Food, 179
Limits to Growth (Club of Rome), 14 LISA. See low-impact sustainable agriculture Listeria, 185, 186, 191
labeling, 90–91, 169 GMO, 194–95, 199–200 land grabs, 24–26
livestock. See also beef; concentrated animal feeding operations; poultry industry
Land Institute in Kansas, 119
crop v., 137
land use, 109, 122
ethical standards, 137
organic farm, 174–75
feed, 5, 30, 109–10, 137, 141
Lappé, Frances Moore, 17
greenhouse gas emissions,
L’Aquila, Italy, 59 large scale farming, 102–3, 158 precision, 121–23 Latin America, 76
131–32 manure, 137 organic products, 171, 175–76 production growth rates, 143 regulations, 144–45
welfare, 143–45 Livestock’s Long Shadow:
competition, 223–24 international, 4–5, 18, 22–23, 205
Environmental Issues and
power, 155–56, 158, 159
Options (FAO), 131
lobbying power, 7, 95, 105–7, 127–28 local food, 161–62, 183, 222 climate change and, 181–82 movement, 176–79
volatility, 222 marketing, 88–89 McDonald’s, 88, 145, 155, 163–65 meat and dairy. See also fish and fisheries; livestock
antibiotics in, 146, 147
slow food v., 182
consumption, 17, 30, 132, 133,
local purchase, 52–53
corn production and, 86
food safety and, 186–87
low-impact farming. See precision
farming low-impact sustainable agriculture (LISA), 119 Lynas, Mark, 203–4
microbial contamination, 145–46 vegetarian v. non vegetarian diet, 140–41 Meat Inspection Act, 155
Meatless Monday campaign, 140
Mad cow disease, 184, 194
meatpacking industry, 155, 157–58
Malawi, 34, 47
medical aid, 46
Malthus, Thomas Robert, 9–16
Mediterranean diet, 92
Malthusians, 11, 12–13, 17
Mexico, 12, 16, 71–72
eco-, 14–15 manure, 75, 137, 147, 148, 166, 167, 174 Mao Zedong, 4, 42, 43–44, 45 marine fishing, 149–51, 224 market, xv. See also specific markets
NAFTA and, 113–15 micronutrient deficits, 31, 33, 40, 69 MiDA. See Millennium Development Authority Middle East, 50
Millennium Challenge Corporation, 60–61 Millennium Development Authority (MiDA), 61
National Organic Program, 168–69 National School Lunch Act (1946), 37
Mixteca region, 72
natural foods, 166–67
monetization, 49, 53–54
New Alliance on Food Security
monocultures, 66, 75 Monsanto Company, xv, 154–55, 192–93, 215–16. See also genetically modified organisms patents and lawsuits, 156–57, 198–99 Mozambique, 43, 46, 47, 152 multinational corporations, 214–16 Murray-Darling Basin, 135 muscular exertion, 84
and Nutrition, 62 New Deal program, 102 New England Journal of Medicine, 87 New York City, 96–98 New Zealand, 110, 181 NGO. See nongovernmental organizations nongovernmental organizations (NGO), 47, 49, 135–36 agroecological farming v. green revolution and, 78–80 power, 216–18
NAFTA. See North America Free Trade Agreement national agricultural research systems, 58 National Antimicrobial
North America, 7–8, 24, 81. See also Canada; United States North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), 113–15 North Korea, 4, 42, 45, 57, 206
no-till farming, 77–78, 121
nutrition, 5, 29, 87, 222–23. See also
National Association for the
Advancement of Colored
of fish, 148–49
National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, 93 National Farmers Union, 106
local food, 178 meat consumption and, 138 organic food, 171–73
Obama, Barack, 53, 59–60, 62, 113
organic farming, 77, 167–68, 176
Obama, Michelle, 96, 179
conventional farms v., 171–73
obesity, 30, 36
environment and, 173–75
in childhood, 82, 87–88, 94,
land use, 174–75
95–96 consequences of, 82–84 fast food and junk food in, 85–88
scale of, 169–70 organic food, 166–67, 182 food safety and, 171–73 history of, 167–68
food deserts and, 91–92
hunger and, 175–76
food industry as responsible
industrialization of, 170
for, 88–91 government actions to reverse, 93–99 health care costs, 82, 83 as national security issue, 83–84 policies on, 93, 95–96, 97–99, 220–21
livestock products, 171, 175–76 nutritional value, 171–73 regulations/certifications in U.S., 168–69 in supermarkets, 170 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
rates and trends, 81–82, 220–21
Development (OECD), 59,
SNAP and, 97–98
social normalization of, 93, 97
Oxfam America, 216–18
subsidies and, 93 treatment, 98 OECD. See Organisation for
Paddock, Paul, 12–13 Paddock, William, 12–13
Economic Co-operation and
panic buying, 21, 44
Olson, Mancur, 104 One Campaign, 60
Pastoralist Livelihoods Initiative, 61–62
100 mile diet, 177
O’Neill, Tip, 4
People for the Ethical Treatment
Organic Agriculture and Food Security in Africa, 176
of Animals, 144 perennials, 119, 126
pest control, 77, 166, 174 pesticide, 71–73, 119, 126–27 residue, 171, 172 tolerance levels, 172–73
Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation (Sen), 44 precision farming, xiii, 121–23
Pesticides Action Plan, 217
Prentice, Jessica, 176
prices, food, 11–12. See also farm
physical education, 85
pink slime, 187
biofuels and, 26–28
Pinstrup-Andersen, Per, 67
in developing regions, 18
famine and, 43, 44
political perspectives, xiv
international, 19–24, 26–28, 29
politics, future of, 224–26
of junk food, 86
Pollan, Michael, 120, 178
market power and, 159
polycultures, 75, 119
obesity and, 85–87
population, 9–10, 12–16, 125
politics of, 18–19, 28–30
urban, 34–35, 68 The Population Bomb (Ehrlich), 13 post-agricultural societies, 1–4. See also specific societies poultry industry, 114, 118, 157, 179, 188, 191 poverty, 21, 37–38 environmental damage and, 124–25
psychology of panic and, 21, 44 subsidies and, 26–28 price spike, 79, 208 conflict and, 23–24 hunger and, 21–23 land grabs and, 24–26 in 1971–1974, 28–29, 51 in 2007–2008, 20–24, 28–29, 59 in 2010–2012, 21, 24, 28
hunger and, 34
private foundations, 218–19
obesity and, 36
production, food, 21, 223. See also
power of, 35–36 reduction, 71 rural v. urban, 34–35 trap, 35
specific foods climate change and, 128–30, 131–33 decline in, 20
green revolution and, 64, 65, 67, 68, 73, 75–78
export, 21 green revolution and, 64, 65
pesticide use on, 72–73
population and, 13–15
price of, 18, 20
surplus, 51–52 sustainable, 14 Productive Safety Net Program, 62 productivity, 11–12, 41, 80
rich countries, 222 environmental damage caused by agriculture in, 117–18 farm subsidies and, 100–105, 110–11, 127
agroecological approaches v.
government control in, 206–7
green revolution, 75–78
meat consumption to impact
protein-energy deficit, 31, 32
public education, 94, 96
Public Law 480, 51–52, 54 public policy intervention, 37, 39–41 Punjab, 72, 127 Pure Food and Drug Act (1906), 155
NGOs and, 218 trade barriers, 111–12 riots and protests, 18, 23–24, 35–36 Roberts, Paul, 120 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 83, 97
Qaim, Martin, 202
Rockefeller Foundation, 10, 64, 66, 218–19
recombinant DNA (rDNA), 192, 193
Rodale, Jerome Irving, 167–68
regional fishery bodies, 151
Roe v. Wade, 16
renewable energy, 26
Roosevelt, Franklin D., 102
Renewable Fuel Standard, 27,
Rosset, Peter, 67
108–10 Republican Party, 61, 107 research, agricultural, 62–63, 78–79, 224 rice, 114–15, 126, 130, 192, 203, 213–14
Roundup Ready soybeans, 156, 193, 199 Rozelle, Scott, 68 Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, 97 rural inequality, 69–71
rural infrastructure, 6, 58–59, 61,
seeds. See also genetically
74 green revolution and, 66–67 Russia, 21, 43, 56
modified organisms green revolution, 64–65, 74 industry concentration, 156–57 patents, 156, 198–99, 215
Sadashivappa, Prakash, 202
Sen, Amartya, 44
safety, food, 184–85
contamination process, 186–87
al Shabaab, 48
conventional farming, 191
Shiva, Vandana, 66
Silent Spring (Carson), 119, 168
da Silva, Lula, 39
local food, 178
Sinclair, Upton, 155
meat and dairy, 186–87
organic food and, 171–73
Singh, Manhohan, 69
slow food, 182
trade and, 189–90
small-scale diversified farming,
urban agriculture, 180
70–71, 118–19, 169–70
safety net programs, 39, 40, 62
Sahel, 42–43, 45–46
Smil, Vaclav, 175
Salmonella, 185, 188
SNAP. See Food Stamp program
Sarkozy, Nicolas, 27
social status, 34
Schlosser, Eric, 154, 199
social values, 2–4, 12
school lunch programs, 49,
soda. See beverages, sweetened
95–97 School of Public Health at Imperial College, London, 33 science-based farming, xv, 11, 75–76, 80. See also genetically modified organisms; green revolution
soil erosion, 77, 122 mining, 117 Somalia, 4, 23, 42, 47–48 South Asia, 4–5, 33–35, 58, 59. See also specific places food aid in, 50
scientists, agricultural, 118–20
green revolution in, 64
import restrictions, 23
South Korea, 25, 163, 206
obesity and, 93
Soviet Union, 42, 57
price of food and, 26–28
specialized high-yield farming,
water management and, 134–35
118–19. See also large scale
Sudan, 42, 43, 46
sugar, 86, 110
Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, 37
supermarkets, 86, 90–91, 178, 179 in developing countries, 160–62
Sri Lanka, 34
local foods and, 161–62
Stalin, Josef, 42, 43
market power, 159
staple foods, 5, 114
organic food in, 170
Steiner, Rudolf, 167 street food, 163–64
Sustainable Development in South Africa, 149
stunting, 31, 33, 34
sustainable farming, 14, 118–21
Sub-Saharan Africa, 14–15
Swaminathan, M. S., 73
agricultural development assistance, 59 food aid in, 50 GMOs in, 196
tariffs, 111, 114–15, 208–9, 211 technology, farm, 58, 75, 223–24 sustainability of, 118–19
green revolution and, 73–75
terror famine, 43
meat consumption, 138
Thailand, 41, 127
undernutrition in, 5, 33–34, 41,
221 subsidies, 1, 40, 211, 224–25. See
trade, international, 8, 205, 215 agreements, 113–15
also farm subsidies; specific
barriers to, 6, 111–12
cash, 39, 52, 102, 112 ethanol, 26, 107–8
farm subsidies and, 110–11, 113–15
green revolution and, 71
food safety and, 189–90
large scale farming, 102–3
WTO negotiations, 111–13
Transatlantic Free Trade
global governance, 207–11
population projections, 12
trans fat content, 90 Trans-Pacific Partnership, 113 tropical land, 123–24 Tunisia, 24, 35–36 Tyson Foods, Inc., 155, 157
Rome-based institutions, 210, 213 World Food Conference, 1974, 51 World Population Conference, 16
Ukraine famine (1921–1922, 1932–1933), 42, 43, 45 UN. See United Nations undernutrition, 22, 31, 38, 69, 75, 220, 221
United States (U.S.), 2–3, 7, 30, 223–24, 226 agricultural research in Africa, 62–63, 78–79 animal welfare policies, 144–45
children and, 33–34, 36
anti-hunger interventions in, 37
chronic, 5, 34–35
demographics of, 32–34
caloric intake in, 38, 84, 87, 89
in developing countries, 33–34
climate change impacting,
famine v. chronic, 41–42
FAO on, 32–33
conventional farms in, 77–78
policy interventions, 37, 39–41
development assistance to
WHO on, 33 underweight, 31 United Health Group, 98 United Kingdom, 10–11
agriculture, 41, 57–63 environmental damage caused by agriculture in, 117–18 ethanol industry in, 108–10
food spending, 92
export bans, 28–29, 57
livestock regulations, 145
farm income, 100–101, 107
obesity rates, 81
farm subsidies in, 3, 100, 102,
organic farming in, 167 pounds for pounds, 98–99 United Nations (UN). See also
104–5, 111–13 farm subsidy renewal process, 105–7
fish industry in, 150–51, 152
famine criteria, 41–42
food aid policies, 50, 51–54
food safety in, 184–86, 188–89
33, 86, 106, 223–24. See also
GMO regulation in, 193–94,
family food budgets and, 89–90
health care costs, 82, 83, 93
food aid spending, 55
irradiation use in, 191–92
in food security, 38–39
large scale farming in, 102–3
import bans, 190
life expectancy, 13, 32
urban agriculture, 180–81
local food movement in, 179
Uruguay Round, 112, 211
meat consumption, 138, 139–40
U.S. See United States
meatpacking in, 155, 157–58
USAID. See United States
NAFTA and, 113–15
Agency for International
obesity crisis in, 81–82, 83, 87,
91–92 obesity-prevention policies in, 93, 95–96, 97–99
USDA. See United States Department of Agriculture USDA Organic label, 169
organic food, regulations/ certifications in, 168–69
vegan diet, 139, 140
pesticide use in, 126–27
vegetarian diet, 17, 139–41, 223
poverty in, 36–38
vertical farming, 180–81
precision farming in, 121–23
La Via Campesina, 216–17
slow food movement, 182
surplus production, 51–52 undernutrition in, 36–39
Wal-Mart, 21, 96, 162–63, 177, 216
unstructured eating in, 92
Walt Disney Company, 89
urban agriculture in, 180–81
waste, food, 85
vegetarian diets, 139
wasting, 31, 41
United States Agency for
water, 133. See also irrigation
CAFO pollution, 147–48
(USAID), 47, 52–53, 60–62,
harvesting systems, 75, 135–36
United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), 20,
use, 72, 122 Wellesley College, xiv
WFP. See World Food Programme wheat, 4, 51–52, 130, 213–14 fortification of, 40 green revolution and, 64, 65 price of, 18, 24 WHO. See World Health Organization Whole Foods, 177, 200
international organizations, 207–11 multinational corporation control, 214–16 NGO power in, 216–18 private foundations in, 218–19 World Health Organization (WHO), 210, 220
Williamson, Claire, 171
on obesity rates, 81
Winter, Carl K., 173
recommended calorie intake,
World Bank, 58, 209–10, 211–13 World Development Report 2008 (World Bank), 58
38 on undernutrition, 33 World Trade Organization
World Food Crisis, 18, 62
(WTO), 5, 111–13, 208–9,
World Food Programme (WFP),
6, 210, 213 food aid and, 47, 49, 50–51 world food system, 205 government control, 206–7
Zero Hunger, 39, 40 Ziegler, Jean, 27 Zoellick, Robert, 18, 209 | <urn:uuid:c308f4fa-b9c8-48fd-9bd8-03c4fb41661b> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://idoc.pub/documents/robert-paarlberg-food-politics-what-everyone-needs-to-know-2013-6ngew2ge32lv | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571147.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810040253-20220810070253-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.949995 | 102,373 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Beijing demanded praise in exchange for medical supplies
A growing number of reports indicate Chinese officials pushed their counterparts in Europe to make positive statements about China in order to receive shipments of medical supplies to fight the novel coronavirus.
Why it matters: The revelations further taint Beijing's attempts to portray itself as a responsible and trustworthy leader in global public health.
Context: Over the past two months, numerous high-ranking government officials from countries fighting coronavirus outbreaks have offered seemingly effusive praise to China for its assistance.
- The Italian foreign minister credited China with saving lives in Italy, the Serbian president kissed the Chinese flag as he welcomed a shipment of medical supplies on the tarmac, and the Mexican foreign minister tweeted a photo of a plane delivering Chinese aid, writing "Gracias China!!!"
What's happening: Officials in some countries are now saying there was pressure to praise Beijing.
Poland: In exchange for medical supplies, Chinese officials pressured Polish President Andrzej Duda to call Chinese President Xi Jinping to express gratitude
- “Poland wasn’t going to get this stuff unless the phone call was made, so they could use that phone call” for propaganda purposes, the U.S. ambassador to Poland, Georgette Mosbacher, told the New York Times.
Germany: German officials have been approached by Chinese counterparts trying to get them to make positive public statements about China’s coronavirus response and international assistance, according to German newspaper Die Welt Am Sonntag.
What they're saying: “What is most striking to me is the extent to which the Chinese government appears to be demanding public displays of gratitude from other countries; this is certainly not in the tradition of the best humanitarian relief efforts," Elizabeth Economy of the Council on Foreign Relations told the Times.
- “It seems strange to expect signed declarations of thanks from other countries in the midst of the crisis.”
The big picture: A quid pro quo for vital medical aid alienates global audiences who had at first been inclined to welcome Chinese Communist Party leadership in the fight against the coronavirus.
- "The fairly aggressive party-state effort to 'tell a good China story' actually increases public awareness that these propaganda efforts on the Chinese side are going on," Thorsten Benner, director of the Global Public Policy Institute in Berlin, told Axios.
- "They are shooting themselves in the foot by being so pushy on this." | <urn:uuid:fe826748-ad6d-4f10-a520-959bdc2f7b8e> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.axios.com/2020/05/06/beijing-demanded-praise-in-exchange-for-medical-supplies | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.949382 | 513 | 1.882813 | 2 |
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Dr. David Dung
We spoke with University of Bonn spin-off Midel Photonics, a start-up company whose laser beam shaping technology is hoping to sharpen up the laser industry.
Matthias Sachsenhauser, Ph.D.
Following Laser World of Photonics 2022, we spoke with Matthias Sachsenhauser from Hamamatsu Photonics about the role of laser-driven light sources in the future of the photonics sector.
Dr. Keith Paulsen
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The latest excavation project by The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) has led to one of the largest human settlements being unearthed in Tamil Nadu. The settlement reveals some very important and exciting aspects of life in the region 2,500 years ago.
The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) is digging up a very interesting and crucial part of Tamil history in Sivaganga district of Tamil Nadu. Following their excavation work in the area, archaeologists claim that they have found one of the biggest human habitations of Sangam Age known so far.
The Bengaluru-based Excavation Branch VI of the ASI began excavating at Keezhadi village, which is located 12 km south east of Madurai, in February this year, and they have been unearthing some new aspect of history every day since then. Based on their findings, the settlement could have been 2,500 years old, belonging to the Pandya era.
As of now, the age of the settlement has only been determined with the help of comparative dating. The exact figure will be obtained after measuring it with the help of carbon dating.
The Sangam age is an ancient period in South Indian history which spans between 3rd century BC and 4th century AD. It has been named after Sangam academies of poets and scholars from the city of Madurai. Numerous things have been found which help us get a glimpse of the lives of people from that age.
Parts of houses like brick walls, wells, pottery, shells, and glasses have been found from inside layers of soil collected over the years.
“This project is a huge success. It’s astounding how this place has so much to offer. It must have been a big human settlement area,” said K. Amarnath Ramakrishna, the superintending archaeologist, to The Hindu.
Antiquities like glass, pearl, terracotta beads and early historic pottery has also been found. With this discovery, historians feel that the past of Madurai can be redrawn. The excavation is being conducted in a private coconut farm at Keezhadi, in two different localities and the excavation area is called ‘Pallichandai Thidal’. It has a circumference of 3.5 meters and covers 80 acres.
The findings from both the places have revealed different things and stories.
Archaeologists are classifying the two based on an assumption of social hierarchy. The bigger of the two is symbolic of a settlement belonging to rich and educated people as more jewellery, semi-precious stones and Tamil Brahmi inscriptions have been found from there.
The inscriptions also have typical Sangam Age Tamil names like Thisan, Aadhan and Udhiran. The second place has revealed more of pottery, iron weapons and tools.
Things like beads of agate, arretine pot shreds, and quartz found from this region also highlights that the people had trade links with western countries.
The project is expected to be completed by September end, after which the site will be handed over to the owners. Till the, it is open for the public and students to visit.
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Let us know how you felt | <urn:uuid:6043f638-e90d-4037-a69f-e2345b25388c> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.thebetterindia.com/32278/archaeological-survey-of-india-in-tamil-nadu/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.96663 | 786 | 3.34375 | 3 |
And we’re jumping right back into the Radical review. After I did the introduction and first chapter, I tweeted something about how the subtitle should have been “I take hyperbole literally,” and after reading through the second chapter again (titled “Too Hungry for Words: Discovering the Truth and Beauty of the Gospel”), I’ve realized it’s not just hyperbole. It’s everything. David takes everything as literally as possible.
I have the tendency to interpret things overly literally, especially when I’m tired, and even I can recognize sarcasm, hyperbole, metaphor, and the distinctions between exposition and poetry. Like, look at this:
Jesus told us everyone who sins is a slave to sin, and Paul went so far as to say that we are captive to the devil himself. (31)
Honestly, fellow, if you have to premise something with “they even went so far as to say” maybe, just maybe, you should take a step back and ask yourself—if they’re really going so far, do they mean it literally?
David also has a pretty serious problem with taking his own understanding of Scripture and elevating it to something pretty close to Scripture itself, and that’s me being generous. There’s this:
We are each born with an evil, God-hating heart. Genesis 8:21 says that every inclination of man’s heart is evil from childhood … (30)
Why is [Jesus] in such agony and pain [at Gethsemane]? The answer is not because he is afraid of the crucifixion. He is not trembling because of what the Roman soldiers are about to do to him … (34-35).
Three things: first of all, if the verse you’re about to quote says “the imaginations of a man’s heart are evil from his youth,” running around making the claim that means we’re all God-haters from the moment we’re born doesn’t make much sense. Second, while it’s entirely likely that Jesus was also worried about whatever is in the Cup he’s asking to be passed, it seems dismissive and uncompassionate to point-blank declare that Jesus wasn’t afraid of the crucifixion. Jesus was human like as we are. Assuming he couldn’t possibly be afraid of the coming crucifixion (35) seems just a touch Arian to me.
The third and last is that David is a pretty committed Calvinist, and he’s refusing to even acknowledge that there are other approaches to Christian theology. According to him, he lays awake at night terrified for all the people who aren’t an avowed Calvinist like he is. To him, everyone who isn’t a Calvinist is completely and utterly wrong and we will die in hell.
He does this sort of thing throughout the book, and it never ceases to be frustrating. I’ve never been impressed by men who are this arrogant.
The second biggest problem I have with Radical he also introduces in this chapter: asceticism. If you’re not familiar with asceticism, it’s typically a religious attempt to abstain from indulgences or pleasure. There are varying degrees of this, ranging from things like Lent to wearing a cilice and whipping yourself. In my case, it showed up in things like my Sunday school teacher telling me to wear uncomfortable shoes in order to “mortify the flesh.”
In many respects, Radical is a modern argument for Christian asceticism. If David wasn’t so virulently Protestant he’d probably have realized he’s really just recycling St. Francis of Assisi and stopped writing the book. Here, he questions music, padded chairs, air conditioning, decorations, and a bit later on, even sermons (27, 40).
Why all of this bothers me is that it has gnostic overtones. When we buy into a harsh divide between our souls and our bodies, it’s easy to take some passages from the Bible and make them be about all bodily impulses as being evil and corrupted. There’s a long tradition in Christianity of sexual abstinence—in fact, it’s possible that at least one of the early church fathers castrated himself (Origen, according to Eusebius). Even if they didn’t go as far as castration, you can see the leftover movement in the modern Catholic requirement for priests to abstain from sex and marriage.
The problem is, this leaves out things like other Scripture passages (like Paul’s instruction that we sing psalms and hymns in Ephesians), and ignores the fact that the Christian religion is one very much concerned with embodiment. Jesus is God made flesh, God with us, Immanuel. The two sacraments we all agree on—the Eucharist and Baptism—are fundamentally about recognizing that our bodies and our souls are inseparably the same, and that spiritual acts are physical ones and vice versa.
In my opinion, arguments for asceticism—whatever religious or secular place they come from—always ignore this reality, and arguments that ignore reality can’t be successful. I’m especially sensitive to this as a chronic pain sufferer—take away indoor heating and padded chairs and I’m unable to come to your church service. Make church services last six to twelve hours like what he talks about here and I will not be able to fully participate in your church.
The third and last significant problem with this chapter is that he’s very much of the “Christians talk about how God is love too much, we need to focus on how God is wrathful and hateful and a holy judge” persuasion. Like here:
Yes, God is a loving Father, but he is also a wrathful Judge … And in some sense, God also hates sinners … On psalmist said to God, “The arrogant cannot stand in your presence; you hate all who do wrong.” (29)
Leaving aside for the moment that the psalms are poetry and therefore treating an outpouring of a psalmist’s emotions as literal factual truth about the nature of God themself is more than a little ridiculous, let’s take a crack at his “God is also hateful and wrathful” assertion. He positions their wrath as being in tension with their love, as though God’s love and wrath are opposites. I’d like to posit that they are not opposites, but that one results from the other. God is wrathful because they are loving.
This springs from my understanding of the context—if you examine almost every time that God is being portrayed as wrathful, it is in response to someone being oppressive. In almost every case it’s the Israelites doing things like refusing to observe the Year of Jubilee, like in Amos. Supposedly God gave them every opportunity not to turn into an oppressive Empire that preferred the wealthy and powerful over the poor and needy, and they took every opportunity to become precisely that. And when that happens, the prophets and the psalmists spend a lot of time condemning it, writing about how they believe God feels about it, too. According to them, God’s usually pretty upset and for good reason.
During Jesus’ ministry, it seems he spent most of his time addressing the injustices he saw. He fed the hungry, healed the sick, lifted up the poor in spirit. The times he’s shown as angry are in reaction to the elite using their positions to abuse those below them—like the moneychangers in the temple, or the Pharisees giving their followers a “back-breaking burden.” Jesus loved, and because he loved, he grew wrathful when he saw oppression and injustice.
But, according to David, God is wrathful, and because someone thousands of years ago sinned, we’re all born completely and totally evil – “you are an enemy of God, dead in your sin, and in your present state you are not even able to see that you need life” (32)—and Jesus had to bear all the fury and wrath “stored up from the beginning of the world” (35) in order for God to be able to come down from his mountain again (33) and tolerate being around us.
Just … is God actually that petty?
There are a few things in this chapter that I could almost agree with him on, like his rejection of a “superstitious sinner’s prayer” (37). I’ve even compared the sinner’s prayer to a magical incantation, so obviously this idea is something we both dislike. But we almost immediately diverge from each other, because he’s a Calvinist and I’m not. He’s still viewing Christianity in terms of saved and unsaved and I’ve moved past that to being a Christian means following Christ.
Maybe somewhere in this book we’ll fall more in step with each other. I doubt it. | <urn:uuid:bb74c84f-fdfb-41f9-a916-4e4815826f6a> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://samanthapfield.com/tag/asceticism/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571147.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810040253-20220810070253-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.965218 | 1,942 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Acts 12 encompasses a fascinating story that functions like a well-designed Hollywood film. It has tragedy, triumph, humor, shock and awe, not to mention some poetic justice as well. But it leaves you wondering, “So what’s the point of the story? Why did Luke record this?” The answer is found in the details Luke gives around the idea of time. We think of time as linear, but the writers of the Bible saw time as looping. Meaning, there were these patterns that would repeat themselves. And if you can identify the pattern at play, you gain a much better understanding about what’s being communicated through a particular story. And the bizarre story in Acts 12 is massively significant in reminding us that despite whatever pain, confusion, frustration, or heartache may be going on in our world or in our lives, God’s purposes are still prevailing.
(This teaching was done at Church of the City in Franklin, Tennessee.) | <urn:uuid:8c98f061-80d5-4b88-af3e-af4d2a358110> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://walkingthetext.com/godspurposesprevail/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571147.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810040253-20220810070253-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.968194 | 200 | 1.976563 | 2 |
An initiative was announced today to assist with efforts in keeping the troublesome invasive species known as zebra mussels out of Deep Creek Lake.
The unique partnership between the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, Deep Creek Watershed Foundation and Brookfield Renewable will bring forward a robust zebra mussel monitoring plan, which will utilize a combination of water quality sampling to assess zebra mussel suitability and visual surveys to look for the possible presence of zebra mussels at Deep Creek Lake.
Maryland Natural Resources staff are coordinating and overseeing the monitoring program, which began in the spring and will run through the fall. Zebra mussels were identified on two boats through the department’s Launch Steward Program designed to inspect boats for potential invasive species before they enter the lake in 2016 and 2017. No zebra mussels have been identified in Deep Creek Lake.
“The Deep Creek Lake zebra mussel monitoring project is a unique partnership that will enhance our efforts to evaluate and protect the lake from a potential invasive species threat,” Resource Assessment Service Director Bruce Michael said. “Monitoring and assessing all aspects of the lake, from water quality and habitat conditions to submerged aquatic vegetation and fish are integral in understanding one of Maryland’s most treasured resources.”
John McVaigh, Director of Operations for Brookfield Renewable said, “When we were approached by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources about the opportunity to assist in their preventative initiative, we saw it as an innovative, proactive effort to curtail this problematic invasive before it can wreak havoc on the lake and its ecosystem. We look forward to working together to ensure the continued sustainability and vibrancy of Deep Creek.”
David Myerberg, President of the Board of the Deep Creek Watershed Foundation said, “This is the kind of opportunity that our foundation supports in line with the Deep Creek Watershed Management Plan, and we thank the Department of Natural Resources and Brookfield for joining us to preserve and protect the watershed for posterity.”’
How this program proceeds is dependent on a variety of factors, most notably, the outcome and results of the visual surveys and water quality sampling. | <urn:uuid:15f95ffb-34ca-44b1-a734-144e29b211cf> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://outdoornewsdaily.com/public-private-partnership-to-prevent-invasive-species-at-deep-creek/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.936159 | 446 | 2.5625 | 3 |
If you try too hard that you can create a bigger hemorrhoid challenge than you already had.
In reality, the medicines that may easily be bought from the pharmacy do not solve this challenge absolutely.
Hemorrhoids can be divided into two classes namely external hemorrhoids and inside hemorrhoids. One of the average types of interior hemorrhoids is the prolapsed hemorrhoids. This kind of inner hemorrhoids usually seems as small area or a clump of soppy tissues which is reddish in color. Prolapsed hemorrhoids are not bad and painful but if not handled properly, they’re able to turn into thrombosed hemorrhoids which might protrude external the anus and may cause severe pain and discomfort for the person. Symptoms of prolapsed hemorrhoids can vary depending on the case but common signs and indications are itchiness in the anal area, bleeding which could seem in the stools or in the ingredients used to wipe and clean the anus, soiling of the underpants, feeling unfinished during bowel activities and being unable to complete emptying the bowels. There are four categories of hemorrhoids in response to their severity or seriousness and prolapsed hemorrhoids are frequently formed in the second one to fourth degree of hemorrhoids. There are many remedies available to this form of hemorrhoids and that they can vary depending on the severity of the case. Topical and herbal treatments are being utilized to cure the hemorrhoids but in severe cases wherein the hemorrhoids are not healed using herbal treatments and are inflicting severe pain and discomfort for the person, present process a surgical procedure is how to end the prolapsed hemorrhoids. Hemorrhoids are a quite common but not a life-threatening sickness. Everyone has hemorrhoids. However, for many the hemorrhoids are merely dormant but for roughly 6 percent of the population, the hemorrhoids become infected and feature to be attended to automatically.
These can be found under numerous brand names and many of them won’t demand a prescription.
Sphincter spasm makes you uncomfortable and you get relief from this spasm only with reduction of hemorrhoids.
The veins of the rectum and people of the anus customarily get dilated resulting in besides much pain. Venapro The veins of the rectum and people of the anus customarily get dilated resulting in besides much pain.
The formation of hemorrhoids is much more likely in those individuals who’ve overweight complications or event constipation. | <urn:uuid:ff7a5365-1542-40eb-9d1f-d993699b0a3b> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.venaprowebsite.com/venapro-hemorrhoids-management-cure-2022/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570879.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808213349-20220809003349-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.940602 | 503 | 1.859375 | 2 |
The government said Wednesday that it will expand incentives to attract more foreign education institutions to Korea in an attempt to increase the nation’s competitiveness in global education business.
It plans to encourage international education institutions to come to Korea by easing restrictions, providing more incentives and subsidies and simplifying review processes. It also will seek to revise a related law to allow them to send their earnings back to their countries and apply the accounting standards of their country, according to officials.
“The government will attract more foreign education institutions in a bid to revitalize free economic zones and increase global competitiveness of higher education in the country. We will provide as much investment as possible in support of raising global leaders,” said officials.
According to the government initiative, review processes for foreign institutions which wish to establish their branches here will be simplified and shortened. Government subsidies to foreign institutions are also expected to increase from the current 9.2 billion won ($8.4 million) given for five years at maximum and provide the same amount of funds to all institutions.
The government ordered related ministries such as finance, education and knowledge economy to come up with detailed measures to attract and retain foreign institutions in Korea.
It will first focus on six free economic zones including Incheon Free Economic Zone, which has attracted a few foreign universities to Songdo aimed for becoming an educational hub in Northeast Asia, they said.
Singapore offers free rent for university sites as well as research fund plus $100 million incentives to foreign institutions. China also offers free rent for university sites as well as money for construction, according to officials.
By Lee Woo-young (firstname.lastname@example.org | <urn:uuid:f528775b-7dcf-4d7e-92d5-0738b40f3d72> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://m.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20111221000830&np=4780&mp=478 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571147.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810040253-20220810070253-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.960602 | 340 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Opponents of PolyMet Mining's plan to mine for copper, nickel and other metals in northeastern Minnesota keep hoping that the economics of the project collapse and no investor or bank steps up to fund it.
The project as outlined in a report released last week certainly isn't as financially appealing as it once was. After PolyMet investors digested the report, its stock price plunged and finished the week down 19 percent.
The biggest differences from the last stab at projecting the finances are much higher capital costs. The latest financial model includes more than $100 million of additional investment to keep mine waste out of the environment, according to PolyMet CEO Jon Cherry.
Yet it's premature to call this a deal that can't get financed. If forced to bet, the best odds still seem to lie with this project going into production, mostly because of the big involvement already of the Swiss-based commodity and mining giant Glencore.
PolyMet calls its project NorthMet and it is easily the most visible of several efforts underway to develop mining for copper, nickel and other metals in northeastern Minnesota. The company's involvement in the project goes all the way back to the late 1980s. In a nutshell, PolyMet envisions a processing facility at the site of an old iron mining operation called the Erie Plant near Hoyt Lakes and mining sites that lie several miles away to the east.
PolyMet Mining is based in St. Paul but is formally a Canadian company, which is one reason there's another detailed PolyMet technical report now out in the public. Canadian regulators care enough about the integrity of its capital market for mining to make sure public disclosures are reliable. That's particularly true since the spectacular collapse more than 20 years ago of a fraudulent gold mining company.
If there is one number out of PolyMet's nearly 300-page report that seemed to grab a lot of attention, it's 9.6 percent, the internal rate of return after taxes for Phase 1 of the project.
That finance term maybe means nothing to you, but it's just a basic measure of what kind of return investors can expect from investing almost $1 billion.
As such things go, 9.6 percent is awfully skinny if trying to attract investors to a business with potentially big swings in selling prices among other risks. An earlier report PolyMet issued showed a potential rate of return that was nearly three times higher.
"I anticipated, until literally the day I opened this up a couple of days ago, that this [report] would similarly show that rate of return," said Jim Kuipers, a veteran Montana mining consultant who advises Minnesota environmental advocacy groups. He knew PolyMet would be investing a lot more capital in the project than it had once planned, but metals prices have also increased since the time of the last forecast.
Yet the "decrease to 9 or 10 percent was very surprising, almost want to say shocking," he said.
On the other hand, if the capital is cheap enough to obtain in the market, this deal as proposed may make sense. One company that can get inexpensive money is the global commodity and mining company Glencore. It's already heavily invested in PolyMet, owning more than the third of the company on a fully diluted basis.
Glencore has a much stronger balance sheet than it had just a few years ago and generated cash flow from operations last year of about $11.6 billion.
Glencore has been able to borrow money at interest rates a whole lot cheaper than 9.6 percent.
In a busy week for PolyMet last week, it also announced even more funding from Glencore, additional debt financing of up to $80 million.
It's Glencore's money but it's still PolyMet in charge of the project. The plan it's trying to get permits for calls for an operation of 32,000 tons of material per day or about 225 million tons over a 20-year mine life. Once it starts production, PolyMet plans to use cash flow to build additional processing capability to extract more value from the rock it digs up.
That second phase makes the economic case a little better, but the real news last week was that the technical report for the first time showed two far better deals than PolyMet's 32,000 tons-a-day project, business cases PolyMet calls "opportunity" and "expansion."
"The thing that people have lost sight of is that we are only permitting 225 million tons out of a 730-million ton resource," Cherry said, suggesting that there's far more opportunity to make money here than maybe some people realize.
Actually, anybody paying any attention knew an expansion proposal was coming someday. PolyMet for years has planned to process 32,000 tons a day at an old iron mining plant built to handle 100,000 tons. It had proposed a 20-year mine plan to take out less than a third of the ore more or less already known to be in the ground.
What PolyMet calls its expansion case is an operation basically the same size as proposed but running 118,000 tons per day through it instead of 32,000. That would be a moneymaker, too, with a projected, after-tax rate of return approaching 24 percent, according to a preliminary analysis in the new technical report.
Cherry explained last week that the higher production plans would, of course, need a lot of additional engineering and permitting work, all to be happen down the road. The company remains focused on its 32,000 tons-per-day plan. "That's what we are going out to finance," he said.
Yet Kuipers pointed out that it's the higher-capacity projects that will make a lot of sense to a big company like Glencore.
"I think this project will go into production," Kuipers said. "They get through the permitting, and it's Glencore saying 'We want it, we'll take it, and we will go forward in the way we would do it. That's as big a mine, and as profitable a mine, as we can make it.'" | <urn:uuid:c84d70ab-0eb1-4a22-a565-e3dfcc7eafa3> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.startribune.com/new-numbers-show-polymet-s-minnesota-mine-holds-smaller-potential-except-to-backer-glencore/478419643/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571147.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810040253-20220810070253-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.971193 | 1,255 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Entries for February 2015
posted on February 12, 2015 06:58
Karate is one of the more complex sports disciplines, because when the students practice it, it develops the motor skills in a secure way. Its origin begins hundreds of years ago in Okinawa, which was influenced by an ancient Chinese tradition. Karate Do, literally means, the way of empty hands.
This is a reference that its followers do not use weapons, not to attack nor to defend yourself, just their feet, hands and body. Even then, Karate is much more than just physical activity, it is based in the great philosophical and spiritual tradition of Bushido.
[Read the rest of this article...] | <urn:uuid:0865f9f0-2db7-44d8-a637-79097534b602> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://keikoshin.com/News/Blog/articleType/ArchiveView/month/2/year/2015 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.967257 | 145 | 1.992188 | 2 |
Evoking the dark era of Soviet repression, Russian politicians and journalists are being driven into exile in growing numbers.
The steady stream of politically motivated emigration that had accompanied President Vladimir Putin’s two-decade rule turned into a torrent this year. Opposition figures, their aides, rights activists and even independent journalists are increasingly being given a simple choice: flee or face prison.
A top ally of the imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny left Russia this month, state media said, adding her to a list of dozens of dissidents and journalists believed to have departed this year. Taken together, experts say, it is the biggest wave of political emigration in Russia’s post-Soviet history.
This year’s forced departures recall a tactic honed by the KGB during the last decades of the Soviet Union, when the secret police would tell some dissidents they could go either west or east — into exile or to a Siberian prison camp. Now, as then, the Kremlin appears to be betting that forcing high-profile critics out of the country is less of a headache than imprisoning them, and that Russians abroad are easy to paint as traitors in cahoots with the West.
“Their strategy is: First, squeeze them out,” said Dmitri Gudkov, a popular Moscow opposition politician who fled in June. “And if you can’t squeeze them out, throw them in jail.”
On Aug. 7, Lyubov Sobol, the most prominent ally of Navalny who had remained inside Russia, flew to Turkey, pro-Kremlin television channels reported. Earlier this month, a court sentenced Sobol to a year and a half of restrictions on her movement, including a ban on leaving the Moscow region. But the authorities granted her a few weeks’ freedom before the sentence went into effect — a clear signal to Sobol that she had one last chance to get out.
“It’s best of course to participate in Russian politics from inside Russia,” Sobol said in a recent interview. “But for now, the risks of this are too great.”
Speaking to The New York Times on Aug. 5, Sobol acknowledged that she was considering leaving because she faced prison time in other pending criminal cases. She has remained active on social media, commenting on events in Russia, but has not revealed her whereabouts; on Thursday, she posted that a surgeon in Armenia had performed a long-delayed operation on her nose.
On Monday, Russian news agencies reported that Navalny’s spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, had left the country as well.
Andrei Soldatov, who co-wrote a book on the history of Russians abroad, “The Compatriots,” with Irina Borogan, described the practice of pushing dissidents out as a “very smart tactic” by the Kremlin. The two have themselves been in self-imposed exile in London since September, having received signals that it would be dangerous to return, Soldatov said.
“When people can choose between radicalizing further or leaving, people still have a choice, and they leave,” he said. “This reduces the pressure on the system.”
This year’s spate of departures — touched off by the crackdown on dissent that followed Navalny’s return to Russia in January — has included more than a dozen national and regional figures in Navalny’s movement, which has been outlawed as extremist; other opposition activists from across the country; and journalists whose news outlets have been banned or branded as “foreign agents.”
One investigative journalist, Roman Badanin, was on a family vacation in Africa last month when his outlet, Proekt, was declared an “undesirable organization,” making any association with it a potential crime. He considered returning home to face prosecution. Doing so could have made him a political star but would have thwarted his ability to continue as a journalist, and time spent in prison “would be my least productive years,” he said.
So Badanin flew from Morocco to New York, packing little but his warm-weather vacation clothes. He has stayed with a friend in California and helped some of his staff members leave Russia, as well. Badanin said that when the police raided his deputy’s home, the message could not have been more clear: The detective pointedly handed back the passport he found.
The question for the new exiles is how to remain relevant at home. Badanin plans to create a news outlet based outside Russia of interest to people in Russia — a challenge because Russian émigrés often grow detached from their homeland and “become interesting only to each other.”
The former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who spent 10 years in prison after falling afoul of Putin and now lives in London, said he spends 12 hours a day immersed in communications with people in Russia. He is determined, Khodorkovsky said in a phone interview, to make sure he does not lose touch with a country he last saw as a free man in 2003.
Two news outlets and a legal-rights group in Russia backed by Khodorkovsky shut down this month after organizations linked to him were declared “undesirable.” Andrei Pivorarov, a former head of Khodorkovsky’s Open Russia movement, was arrested after boarding a flight to Warsaw in May — a sign that not all dissidents are being allowed to flee.
“I believed it was imperative to continue working in the open and in public until the last moment, so long as that possibility existed,” Khodorkovsky said. But now, he said, “the risks of such work have become too great.”
As opposition leaders leave, the pro-Kremlin news media scornfully reports on their departures. A comment posted to a popular pro-Kremlin account on the social network Telegram, for instance, said Sobol’s exit showed that “the Navalnyites can be associated with nothing but cowardly rats.”
Navalny’s associates are trying to retain their influence through corruption investigations and livestreams on YouTube, and by campaigning for a coordinated protest vote in Russian parliamentary elections in September. But they do not highlight the fact that they are abroad.
Ivan Zhdanov, the executive director of Navalny’s team, left Russia in January, helping coordinate the protests that followed Navalny’s return and arrest. He decided not to go back after Russian authorities accused him of recruiting minors to protest. In a phone interview from a location in Europe that he would not disclose, he argued that the battlefield of Russian politics had largely moved online.
“What’s important is what we are doing, not whether a certain employee or a certain number of employees has crossed the border of the Russian Federation,” Zhdanov said.
In March, police in southern Russia arrested Zhdanov’s 66-year-old father, a retired local official, on suspicion of abuse of office. He is now jailed in Russia’s Far North.
“These are terrorists who took a hostage,” Zhdanov said of his father’s arrest, pledging that he would not change course.
For Gudkov, the Moscow politician, it was the threat of jail time for a relative that forced him out of the country.
In June, people close to the authorities called Gudkov’s wife and father to pass along the message that he and his 61-year-old aunt faced prison in a case over allegedly unpaid rent. Despite being a suspect in a criminal investigation, Gudkov was able to get in his car and drive to Ukraine — a move that he believes reduced the pressure on his aunt.
Gudkov, who served in Parliament from 2011 to 2016, said the Russian authorities were convinced that not enough dissidents were allowed to leave the country in the Soviet era, leading to internal political pressure that helped bring about the country’s demise.
But officials fail to recognize the significance of the internet, he said.
“Our generals in the security agencies are preparing for the last war,” Gudkov said from his current place of refuge, in Bulgaria. “Now if you leave, you are heard just as well, if not better.”
Some Putin critics would disagree.
Yulia Galyamina, who helped lead a campaign against a referendum last year that allowed Putin to rule until 2036, said she refused to take the hint to leave while she was under criminal investigation. She received a two-year suspended sentence, preventing her from running for Parliament in September. She is now working with another opposition candidate, but she is staying away from street protests on the advice of her lawyer.
“I’m sorry, but how will anything change here if everyone leaves?” she said. “When everything starts collapsing, power will fall into the hands of those who are close by.”
By Anton Troianovskic.2021 The New York Times Company | <urn:uuid:0e84ad64-a7b0-4746-8958-2026fe31f84a> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/world/exile-or-jail-the-grim-choice-facing-russian-opposition-leaders-7410461.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571147.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810040253-20220810070253-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.975602 | 1,905 | 1.921875 | 2 |
Asia Pacific will grow with the highest CAGR of approximately 35% between 2017 and 2024 in smart building market.
The brains behind the build, professionals who make buildings better and more user friendly are in high demand.
Building services engineering ensures that buildings do what they are meant to do: providing a safe and comfortable environment for people that inhabit them so that they can live, work, and thrive. It is the task of building engineers to transform architectural designs into concrete reality.
Building services engineers are also on the front line of the battle to create a more sustainable environment by designing buildings that reduce energy consumption. The running of the heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) equipment within a building can consume a lot of energy. In Asia Pacific, energy consumption in buildings will continue to grow rapidly as a result of new construction spurred by high economic growth and the increasing demand for cooling in warm climate regions. Currently, China and Japan account for the largest share of the commercial building floor space, followed by India, South Korea, and Australia. In response to environmental demands, the smart thermostat market is booming within building services. Asia-Pacific witness a significant growth rate over the forecast period.
As we move into a new decade, there is no doubt that this industry will be a key participant in building the future of the modern world – and that building services engineers will continue to be in high demand. | <urn:uuid:6eab9727-2dc3-424e-bf3b-78a359352b64> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.lviassociates.sg/disciplines/building-services | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.959072 | 285 | 1.757813 | 2 |
This is the second of a ten-article series that examines why health care and health insurance costs are higher in the United States.
Ever had medical procedure done in the USA? If yes, did you know what your real medical treatment bill was going to be? Did you know that even after the medical care was completed and you were discharged?
Chances are you did not, especially if you are insured by your employer! Don’t be embarrassed…
The US system of medical care is such that the patient in most cases does not know what the hospital or the doctors are being paid for providing the service. The patient usually only knows the co-payment or co-insurance amount. Depending upon the type of insurance plan, this amount could be just a fraction of the total amount, a fixed amount or maybe zero. This results in the end consumer (the patient, in this case) not getting an incentive or option to be a “smart shopper” for medical care. This adds to the inefficiencies in the system and many times the patient ends up getting medical service at higher prices in spite of there being more economical options.
For example, the charge for visiting Emergency might be $200 and the charge for a regular physician visit may be $100 to the insurance company. Many people when deciding to visit one over the other don’t have the charge in mind (as they don’t know it or financially its the same for them). They choose the convenient option. In such cases, non-emergency patients also end up visiting the ER and inflating the charge for the insurance company.
Another example is the case where there are more cost-effective treatment and surgery options available at overseas hospitals. Treatment at many international hospitals results in 60 to 90% savings on USA costs. Insurance companies can reduce the medical cost to them by allowing patients the option of overseas medical treatment.
This is by providing the patient first the option, then adding an incentive to to visit overseas where there is more affordable medical treatment. With Medical Tourism becoming a global phenomenon, this is a very viable option that insurance companies, especially self-insured companies need to look into to reduce costs (and ultimately passing the savings to the consumers).
To summarize, smart insurance plans with smart options that would involve the end consumer is one of the things that can help in reducing health insurance and medical costs. Another thing that can be done is the education of the insured on the impact of their health care choices. | <urn:uuid:a9119e0c-a5f6-404b-97e1-2bc3a8e16c29> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.medicaltourismco.com/no-incentive-or-options-for-patients-to-shop-around-for-medical-care-results-in-higher-insurance-premiums/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571147.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810040253-20220810070253-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.962544 | 508 | 2.34375 | 2 |
Around 10% of England’s properties are known as leasehold, which means the property owner leases the land (not the structure) for a nominal sum. Many leases are for hundreds of years, but some are now being shortened and homeowners on these plots do not realize that the process is leading them into negative equity on the home. The shorter a leasehold the less the entire property is worth, and English surveyor e.surv reports that as many as 1.43 million homes valuing £2.2 billion are facing the potential loss of equity across the country. For more on this continue reading the following article from Property Wire.
Up to 1.43 million homes in England and Wales are at risk from shortening leasehold terms leaving borrowers and lenders with the prospect of negative equity, according to new research.
The report from e.surv, the largest chartered surveyor in the UK, points out that the value of home begin to drop dramatically once a lease term reaches 80 years and many lenders are unwilling to approve a mortgage on such properties. And once the lease reaches 60 years the value can plummet even further.
The research estimates that this situation could affect 10.1% of residential housing stock which amounts to around 1.43 million homes worth £2.2 billion.
It also found that the North West of England and London have the highest number of homes affected by this kind of situation.
Unless the lease is renewed, which costs more the shorter the lease is, the value of the home can drop rapidly enough for the owner to fall into negative equity and become trapped in the home because it becomes impossible to get a mortgage on.
Richard Sexton, director of e.surv chartered surveyors, pointed out that 90% of property in England and Wales is freehold, meaning the home owner also owns the land. But the remaining 10% is leasehold, where the owner of the property effectively rents the land for a nominal sum.
‘The length of the lease has a direct bearing on the value of the property, and most people aren’t aware that a shortening lease term can erode thousands of pounds off the value of the home,’ he said.
Most leases are very long, up to 900 years in some cases, but there are plenty which are much shorter. Once a lease has less than 80 years to run, the value of the property begins to fall and picks up speed the closer it gets to expiry.
‘The potential consequences are nightmarish for the owner and the mortgage lender. Both the lender and the owner can fall into negative equity, the property becomes unmortgageble, and is therefore impossible to sell to anyone but a cash buyer. This traps the lender and the borrower with a toxic asset that is losing value by the day,’ explained Sexton.
‘In the worst case scenarios, the borrower is unable to move home, the lender is forced to repossess the property and is stuck with an asset that has plummeted in value. It is a big danger to a lenders’ leasehold back book,’ he added.
Flats are particularly at risk because most UK flats are leasehold rather than freehold. Of the 1.43 million leasehold properties in the UK, 817,000 are flats, while the remaining 612,000 are houses. Sextopn says that this means inner city urban areas are disproportionately affected by the problem of shortening lease terms. The total value of all leasehold property in the UK is approximately £2.2 billion but this figure could be dragged down by shortening leases.
He also points out that interest only mortgage borrowers are most at risk. ‘If the borrower is just servicing the mortgage on a leasehold property, once the unexpired lease runs below 80 years the value of the property falls close to the outstanding balance off the mortgage and shortly afterwards can fall into negative equity,’ he explained.
‘There are a large block of interest only borrowers potentially at risk. Since 2002, there have been 1.28 million interest only loans granted for house purchase loans which have no repayment plan. This represents 14% of total house purchases over the last decade,’ he added.
The firm gives a hypothetical case. For example, if a property with a 90 year lease term was bought for £150,000 in 2000 using an 80% LTV interest only mortgage, after 10 years, the value of the property begins to fall. By 2025, with 65 years left on the term, if the lease still hasn’t been renewed, the value of the property could easily fall by 20%, bringing the value of the home equal to the outstanding value of the mortgage. Once the lease term has less than 65 years left to run, the value of the property thereafter falls dramatically, and is worth less than the outstanding mortgage balance, leaving the lender and the borrower in negative equity.
‘There are big variations in how leasehold property is spread throughout the country. The Midlands has a low number, while in London and the North West almost a quarter of all residential property is leasehold,’ said Sexton.
‘This will be of huge concern to lenders with a particularly heavy exposure in those regions. Most leasehold terms are on flats rather than houses, meaning urban areas are particularly exposed to the problem. Borrowers living in flats tend to be less affluent than those living in houses. This makes the threat of negative equity posed by short leaseholds an even bigger concern because it could hit people from poorer backgrounds the hardest,’ he added.
But he also said that as well as the threat of negative equity, failing to help mortgage borrowers renew the lease on their property and failing to identify customers with short lease terms and alerting them to the problem leaves lenders open to accusations that they have treated their customers unfairly.
‘To get a grip of the problem, and to protect their lease back book, lenders need to securitise and measure the value of the home because it may be worth much less than they expected. Some lenders could have a big block of borrowers on their books that are affected by the problem. Gone unnoticed, this block would be a ticking time bomb,’ said Sexton.
‘The consequences of not acting are potentially very serious. Lenders will come under intense TCF scrutiny. They may be forced to repossess homes which are nigh on impossible to shift on. And that’s not to mention the hit their balance sheets will take. Its important lenders notify their customers if they spot there may be a problem. They then need to offer them advice on how to go about extending the lease,’ he continued.
When it comes to extending a lease it needn’t be a problem as long as the lender and the consumer are made aware of it in good time. ‘A lease extension can cost as little as a few thousand pounds, and buying the freehold of your house costs even less,’ said Sexton.
‘Applicants shouldn’t accept the first sum quoted by their landlords but you will be responsible for not only your costs but also those reasonable costs of the freeholder. The shorter the lease becomes, the more expensive it is to extend. It’s an issue that needs to be tackled early or else it can snowball into something much more heart breaking for the owner,’ he added.
This article was republished with permission from Property Wire. | <urn:uuid:9e96427a-d9de-414a-a487-1df1adf7eb4a> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.nuwireinvestor.com/england-leasehold-properties-losing-value/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573029.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817153027-20220817183027-00264.warc.gz | en | 0.962764 | 1,543 | 2.359375 | 2 |
What Pop-Tart are you?
Strawberry- You are as basic as they come. Everything that is mainstream with the culture is something you know about and participate in. You probably know all the pop music on the radio, dress with the trends and generally don’t like to do things to make yourself stand out. But needless to stay, you don’t have a hard time leading your group and making a name for yourself.
Blueberry- Chances you are a very content student, probably attractive and popular, but with bad grades and a happy heart. You might be pretty and shallow, but you have sincere reasons for everything you do. You are most likely a ray of sunshine and a breath of fresh air in a friend group whose main discussion topic is gossip, and meanwhile, you are generally clueless.
Red Velvet- You are actually quite capable of taking care of yourself. Parents, teachers or bosses don’t have to treat you like an infant or coddle you, although they still might be condescending. You are ready to tackle any project or assignment that comes your way. Even if you happen to procrastinate, you always get your work done, and done well. Establishments may come to realize they need you more than you need them.
Brown Sugar Cinnamon- You absolutely don’t buy into something you don’t believe in. You are never found to be jumping on the bandwagon as every new trend comes and goes. “Fitting in” has never been a priority. Attitudes are contagious, and yours is especially so; however there are times when you aren’t so happy and everyone around you suffers as a result.
Cherry- You probably have times where you are obnoxious, loud-mouthed and the life of any party you go to. You are probably the funny one in your friend group, the one who everyone knows when you’re there, you’re bringing the fun. You genuinely care for the people around you though, for well-concealed under that sports gear and constant yelling, there’s a heart of gold.
S’mores- You probably have tendencies to nerd out and be a huge fan of specific things. You are most likely very interested in joining and starting school clubs, and being at Loras probably hasn’t helped you slow down on that. You might have trouble finding love, but once you do, it is absolutely awesome. Your friends probably like you just for who you are, and there is no need to change.
Chocolate Fudge- You are probably a no-nonsense kind of a person when it comes to more serious things in life. When you are tackling things like school, work or emotions, you are level-headed.
Raspberry- You are the one friend who does some very odd things without thinking twice. You go your own way and don’t really care what others think. You most certainly don’t have a clue what a social filter is, and everything you do is ever-so-slightly awkward. But despite these shortcomings, everyone seems to love you anyway. | <urn:uuid:345deb62-1419-4319-b50e-efb31952b4f1> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://myduhawk.com/opinion/what-pop-tart-are-you/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571147.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810040253-20220810070253-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.968168 | 652 | 1.695313 | 2 |
This is because pubic hair acts as ashield to reduce skin contact between people during intercourse.
Its a fun topic, lets see what results we can get :P I personally don't think shaving is safe or even comfortable.
In general, we recommend shaving every two to three days if you want a clean shave; three to five days if you want to simply style or trim; and if you want to just let your hair grow, then simply stop shaving.
Most girls will begin to start showing an interest in shaving their legs when they hit puberty.
These are questions asked by researchers at Lafayette College, and.
Using close settings around my balls, and higher settings around my treasure trail, the result is magnificent, as I stand in the mirror and take pride in my skills, I thank God someone created the clippers. | <urn:uuid:f24635e9-434d-40c1-b5a5-6b18d5c1c046> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://reseller.melbourneit.net.s3-website-ap-southeast-1.amazonaws.com/cyr35329.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.960235 | 169 | 1.539063 | 2 |
VR cardboard uses amazing revolutionary technology that turns your smartphone into a virtual reality viewer. You can experience an immersive, fun and exciting VR world. We all know that once you actively use a VR headset, you always want it with you.
-Material: Kraft paper.
-Size: Lens: 37mm.
The lens are stuck firmly without shaking and falling.
1 * A grade hardened cardboard
n2 * 37mm lens
n3 pairs * sticker
n1 * rubber band
Virtual Reality Glasses are suitable for various small or large mobile phones and models between 3.5-6.0
Virtual Reality Box has lenticular lens to provide 37 mm focal length for the best visual effect, high-definition visual effects of the movie
3D VR Headset has simple assembly in three simple steps and allows you to complete in a few seconds
Virtual Reality Viewer is compatible with smartphones, which means you can easily interact/click inside the app without magnets or NFC
VR Cardboard is made of precise and durable kraft paper, and the final combination of cardboard is very fit, and the lens is stuck firmly | <urn:uuid:3bff34a6-853f-4e48-a29a-30c8f2689ad7> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://yourpersonalisedgifts.co.uk/product/vr-goggles-cardboard-3d-virtual-reality-glasses-box-with-big-clear-3d-optical-lens-and-comfortable-head-strap-nose-pad-diy-vr-viewer-for-smartphones-khaki/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571147.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810040253-20220810070253-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.870555 | 251 | 1.585938 | 2 |
A farmer from southern Israel has invented a product that could be a boon to lemon farmers worldwide. The invention prevents the spread of Mal secco, a fungal disease affecting citrus trees that has been known to kill entire lemon groves.
It was created by Rafi Koren, a lemon farmer from Moshav Avigdor near Kiryat Malachi.
Koren has successfully tested his invention on lemon groves in his area.
Mal secco is a fungus that attacks trees primarily in dry cool climates such as the Mediterranean. It is contagious, and can be carried from grove to grove by wind or rain.
The fungus attacks trees’ vessels, causing the trees to dry out and ultimately, to die.
Current methods for fighting the disease include quarantine, pruning and preemptive treatment with fungicides. | <urn:uuid:c22298ba-36cd-4b5d-9811-baa136f22162> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/166259 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.975386 | 172 | 2.953125 | 3 |
This dream shows a device that could prove very useful: a fan that blows problem situations away. Yet we already do have such a device, and it’s known as the human design. Yes, there will always be things to deal with in a physical life, but if we understand that we are here to become part of the universe, rather than to make ourselves, and our lives, a solely planetary thing, what we become entangled with will be much less important in the long run. (At the end of this post there are instructions and a link to download this recording to your computer.)
Jeane: I remember being in the mountains in my dream. It seems like I’m talking to a friend of mine, a man who spends a lot of time outdoors, and hiking, and skiing, and doing things in the mountains.
And part of what I’m talking about in a way is the device I have that, it looks like a round, circular fan, that’s in some kind of a special case, that can roll out. And when the fan rolls out, whatever it blows away, it’s not a fan that really works on air as much as it works on a situation.
That’s all I really remember of the dream.
John: So you’re in the mountains here, in a situation in which you’re challenged by something as a setting. In other words, to be in a mountain, or climb a mountain, you’re relating to something that is an obstacle, in terms of your development, in terms of yourself.
And, generally, the idea of having to contend with the mountain is the idea of having to take on some definition, or challenge, or something about yourself that you’re still identifying with, or buying into. And what your dream is showing you is that – it’s not explaining how this works, or why this works – but it’s just saying that whatever is there, that you normally would be all caught up in and having to contend with, is not having its usual, in terms of obstacle-like nature, it’s not having its usual way with you, because you know that the way to deal with this is to just hook up a fan and blow it all away.
In other words, blow away whatever it is that you’re having to contend with there, which is an interesting way of portraying that you let go, and that you are able to be at ease, or at peace, or in a type of stillness, as opposed to constantly contending with something. So what is it that we constantly contend with?
You’re just presenting something as an overall image, and you’re being shown that in this overall image that you need to have a particular kind of mood, or tone, or demeanor. In other words, you’re seeing yourself what you’re doing, without looking at the issues or the circumstances, you find yourself knowing how to let go of something around you, in other words, to blow something away, as opposed to sitting there contending with it.
To blow something away, to use the fan and blow something away, is what you’re really blowing away is your personal story, a story that would be looking at what you were doing and trying to see it as being this, that, or the other in some aspect. But you know that it limits you in some fashion and, therefore, you have to let go of it.
Now, it’s a simple dream, but it’s a statement, and it’s an image that points to the general motif of how it is in terms of everything. Whatever it is that you take on as an involvement, that you’re telling yourself you’re intrigued at having to do as a responsibility or whatever, you are actually taking and going from an overall naturalness into something specific, and you are telling yourself that this is something that’s fun and wonderful to do, and it can be if you can do it in a free letting go way, but to the degree to which you become obsessive, or go to an extreme about it, you find out that even though it makes sense to you when you were doing this that this was going to create some sort of better situation or overall balance, what ends up happening is that this consumes you, that this actually, as an activity, can be most exhausting when you would have expected it to be kind of liberating because it was intriguing to you.
Well, this is the nature of obsession. And everything that we do is an obsession when we take on an action that goes into the outer world. That’s why the shaman who realizes that when they journey into the outer world they have to kind of be in a state of reverence, or almost ask a permission, because what they’re doing is they’re stepping out of the overallness that they are, that is all of life, in order to do an excursion. And if they don’t hold a particular kind of attunement they’re going to get lost in their diversion. They’re going to take it too literally, and it’s going to become something that they think is real, and that they approach then obsessively.
And that’s kind of how it is for everybody, you know, that you see out there. You see people doing all of these activities and, in terms of yourself, you can look at it, you can kind of understand what’s involved there, you could see how time consuming it is, you could see how distractive it is, and you don’t have to do it. You can tell that that’s going to hurt the heart. And so you have to let go of that. You don’t identify with that. That’s the fan that blows things away.
To download this file, Right Click (for PCs) or Control Click (for Macs) and Save: The Obstacle | <urn:uuid:14a444f1-5c45-4c95-a42b-eacb5e0f277f> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://dreamingintoknowing.com/2017/12/05/the-obstacle/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570879.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808213349-20220809003349-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.976377 | 1,262 | 1.625 | 2 |
That may seem like a small loss for the Democrats — perhaps “too small,” given the rocky rollout of Obamacare and the loss that the president’s party typically sustains in midterm elections. But there aren’t that many Democratic seats for the taking, thanks to the Republicans’ huge gains in 2010. There are currently 24 seats held by Democrats where Obama received less vote share than his national average in 2012. In 2010, there were 69 such seats.
It’s still early. The forecast could change, and in fact our model will be explicitly designed to change as new information comes in, such as from polls. Indeed, it would be odd for the forecast not to change if conditions in the country or in particular districts changed. However, our model also has the benefit of not overreacting to momentary blips, as would have happened if we had relied only on the generic ballot throughout these last two months, when the Democrat went from near-parity to a large lead and back to near-parity. | <urn:uuid:f545bdbd-f2e6-41dc-ab20-fe98f6c366ea> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://utahpolicy.com/uncategorized/1264-don-t-expect-an-electoral-wave-in-2014 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.987193 | 214 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Updated: March 3, 2016 12:00:54 am
Last March, a few days after Finance Minister Arun Jaitley presented his first full budget, and also later in 2015, one of the narratives that played out was the potential conflict between the government and the RBI, triggered by the proposals to shift regulation of the domestic government bond market and debt management away from the central bank, and form a monetary policy committee or MPC. Cut to Budget 2016. One of the most striking things is the perceptible convergence of views of the RBI and the government — reflected best in the decision to stick to the path of fiscal consolidation and not indulge in adventurism. In the run-up to the budget, RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan had cautioned the government not to deviate from the roadmap for fiscal consolidation and warned about the potential loss of credibility. The government has been mindful about this, acknowledging the negative fallout of higher government borrowing on private investments, and has restricted its borrowings in 2016-17 to Rs 4.2 lakh crore. The markets have welcomed this. Since Friday (before the budget was presented), the Sensex has climbed 1,089 points or 4.7 per cent in anticipation of interest rate cuts by the RBI. Ten-year government bond yields have fallen from 7.9 to 7.6 per cent. This, coupled with an agreement on the composition of the MPC, and the RBI’s decision to ease rules on capital requirements for banks, clearly shows that India’s central bank and government are acting in concert — a huge positive both from the point of view of investors and the market, and also from an institutional and policy-credibility perspective.
Speculation has now been rife about a rate cut. Last September, Rajan surprised the market with a 50-basis point cut in interest rates. Since then, there have been few signs of a pick-up in global growth; exports have contracted for the 14th consecutive month while domestic capacity utilisation is still relatively low. Headline inflation has also been under control. It is possible that the RBI may like to weigh the prospects of the monsoon this year and also the fact that despite cutting rates by 125 basis points last year, banks have been diffident when it comes to passing on the benefits to borrowers, citing the need to set aside capital for the bad loans on their books.
With growth estimates for FY17 at 7 per cent or a little higher, and to stoke demand in the domestic market, there could be a persuasive case for a deeper cut than the baby-step approach of 25-basis point rate reductions. That could be the trigger for the much-needed private investments and a rebound in growth.
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- The Indian Express website has been rated GREEN for its credibility and trustworthiness by Newsguard, a global service that rates news sources for their journalistic standards. | <urn:uuid:062a0768-3476-4267-b4d5-4d9ec6e31f5b> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/editorials/union-budget-2016-arun-jaitley-centre-rbi-duet/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.963922 | 611 | 1.742188 | 2 |
As Southwest farmers begin or near wheat harvest, many, probably most, are looking at yield potential below average and some have already baled or abandoned significant acreage. Others may opt to plant a summer crop on failed acres.
There is some “decent wheat,” in parts of Oklahoma, says Jeff Edwards, Oklahoma State University Extension small grains specialist.
He says farmers have the potential to harvest “50 bushels or so per acre in the Enid area and along 81 down to Chickasha. I looked at some 70 plus bushels per acre wheat in Northeast Oklahoma, but there is not sufficient acreage in that part of the state to impact total bushels by much.”
And across much of the state, conditions are much worse. “Many acres in the southwest and far western Okla. will be baled or abandoned due to the combination of drought and freeze,” Edwards said.
And other problems contribute to farmer woes. “We have had a lot of powdery mildew, septoria, tanspot, and stagonospora this year. We have not had much leaf or stripe rust and I don't think either will be a major issue in Oklahoma this year.
“Overall, I think we are on our way to a well below average year. (In mid- May) the temperatures are above 90 Fahrenheit and the winds are blowing. I looked at a lot of wheat recently with flag leaves rolled. Just a couple of weeks ago this same wheat was on its way to a nice grain fill.”
Texas yields also off
The biggest wheat producing areas in Texas also look less than promising. Clark Neely, the new Texas A&M AgriLife Extension small grains and oilseed specialist, who works out of College Station, says, “The current state of the wheat crop across Texas as a whole is not good in the largest production regions. According to the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), the estimated bushels of production in the Panhandle is only 23 percent of 2012 production and most of the Rolling Plains will be lucky to make 50 percent of last year's crop production,” Neely said.
“Many fields have been abandoned for grain (I do not have a current estimate) and either grazed or hayed for forage or plowed under to recover some of the nutrients in the above-ground biomass.”
He said observations at recent field days in Chilicothe and Lockett indicated “a lot of fields in that area would make around 20 to 25 bushels per acre. The drought and multiple freezes had definitely taken their toll on the crop. Because the weather remained cool after the freezes, it allowed some compensatory growth and yield in younger tillers, which is the main reason yields were as high as they were in this region.”
Some areas to the south show more promise. “Much of the Blacklands is in decent shape, despite some losses during the first bad freeze in late March. The best wheat can be found north and east of the Dallas area. A number of fields I saw recently in Lamar, Grayson, and Collin Counties will top 60 bushels per acre and some may approach 70 bushels. Freeze damage became more consistent around the Cooke County area and west.”
Neely said much of the state finally received some “welcomed rain over the past week; however, most of the Panhandle and Rolling Plains—the areas most in need of it—received very little in most cases. There have also been reports of hail damage around the state; however, I do not know to what extent. The wheat nursery in Castroville was completely hailed out last week and I heard of some fields suffering from hail damage in Milam County.
“Daniel Heathcote (Texas AgriLife Extension) was harvesting the first plots of the year recently in Colorado County, near Eagle Lake, and we anticipate wheat harvest in College Station to begin sometime towards the end of this week. I saw a lot of fields from I-35 that were completely golden last week and I expect harvest in Central Texas will begin in earnest the final week of May.”
Summer weather will speed maturity, he said. “Even though much of the wheat crop in North Texas is only in the milk stage, temperatures in the high 90s and even a few triple digits are expected for highs this week, which is going to turn the crop quickly.”
Neely said seed availability for hard wheat next fall may be an issue. “Efforts are being made to recertify certain fields to help with the shortage.
“For more details on the current state of the wheat crop see http://wheatfreezeinjury.tamu.edu, where Calvin Trostle and I have been posting updates on our observations across the state over the past couple of weeks.” | <urn:uuid:bd4a6dfd-114f-4109-ba8f-60d49d50a9a7> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.farmprogress.com/grains/southwest-wheat-crop-coming-short | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571147.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810040253-20220810070253-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.969243 | 1,021 | 2.046875 | 2 |
Civil Constitution of the Clergy, French Constitution Civile Du Clergé, (July 12, 1790), during the French Revolution, an attempt to reorganize the Roman Catholic Church in France on a national basis. It caused a schism within the French Church and made many devout Catholics turn against the Revolution.
How did the church respond to the French Revolution?
The Revolution and the Church. In August 1789, the State cancelled the taxing power of the Church. The issue of Church property became central to the policies of the new revolutionary government. … On 13 April 1791, the Pope denounced the Constitution, resulting in a split in the French Catholic Church.
What was the role of Church in French Revolution?
Answer. Answer: The French Revolution initially began with attacks on Church corruption and the wealth of the higher clergy, an action with which even many Christians could identify, since the Gallican Church held a dominant role in pre-revolutionary France.
How did religion affect the French Revolution?
Religious practice was outlawed and replaced with the cult of the Supreme Being, a deist state religion. The program of dechristianization waged against the Christian people of France increased in intensity with the enactment of the Law of 17 September 1793, also known as the Law of Suspects.
How did the separation of church and state affect the French Revolution?
The conflict between the French Revolution and the Catholic Church over such issues as the abolition of the tithe (August 1789), the nationalization of church lands (November 1789), and the Civil Constitution of the Clergy (July 1790) resulted in the supremacy of the state.
What problems led to the outbreak of a revolution in France?
In general, historians agree on several different causes of the French Revolution, including: the history of the estates-system, resentment towards the absolute monarchy of Louis XVI, the impact of the Age of Enlightenment, the weather conditions before 1789 and the economic crisis that France faced under Louis XVI.
How did the French respond to threats to the revolution?
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|how did the French respond to threats to the revolution?||they became more radical|
|what was the Constitution of 1791?||established a new legislative assembly|
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How was church responsible for the French Revolution 5 points?
Answer. church was responsible for the revolution because the church also took their share from the third estate due to this share, they were very rich and the condition of third estate members was terrible . Thus this made them to revolt.
How many died in French Revolution?
Under this system, at least 40,000 people were killed. As many as 300,000 Frenchmen and women (1 in 50 Frenchmen and women) were arrested during a ten month period between September 1793 and July 1794. Included in these numbers were, of course, the deaths of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.
Which event was responsible for causing the French Revolution?
A popular insurgency culminated on July 14 when rioters stormed the Bastille fortress in an attempt to secure gunpowder and weapons; many consider this event, now commemorated in France as a national holiday, as the start of the French Revolution.
Is France Catholic or Protestant?
|Religious group||Population % 1986||Population % 2001|
|–Other and unaffiliated Christians||–||–|
What was the impact of the revolution on the church?
The French revolution wiped out all the religious signs and estates which affected the churches who were so far dominating the French scene . The cult of the supreme being was now chosen for the spirituality of the people.
What were Effects of French Revolution?
10 Major Effects of the French Revolution
- #1 End of Bourbon Rule in France.
- #2 Change in Land Ownership in France.
- #3 Loss in power of the French Catholic Church.
- #4 The Birth of Ideologies.
- #5 The Rise of Modern Nationalism.
- #6 The Spread of Liberalism.
- #7 Laying the Groundwork for Communism.
Does France separate church and state?
“France is an indivisible, secular, democratic and social Republic, guaranteeing that all citizens regardless of their origin, race or religion are treated as equals before the law and respecting all religious beliefs” states the Constitution of 1958.
Who advocated the separation of church and state in France?
4: Voltaire. Voltaire was a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher, who attacked the Catholic Church and advocated freedom of religion, freedom of expression, and separation of church and state.
Why was the Catholic Church targeted for reform in the French Revolution?
The National Assembly completed a new constitution, the Constitution of 1791, which set up a limited monarchy. Explain why the Catholic Church was targeted for reform. Because the Catholic Church was seen as an important pillar of the old order, it, too, was reformed. | <urn:uuid:d04cc441-da17-4d41-b9cb-f7ae1735bf71> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://religionandcivilsociety.com/catholics/you-asked-how-did-the-catholic-church-respond-to-the-french-revolution.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571147.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810040253-20220810070253-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.965791 | 1,094 | 3.625 | 4 |
Here's one we're filing under "believe it when we see it." E-commerce titan Alibaba has apparently applied for a license to deliver packages by drone in Beijing and Shanghai.
The maiden drone delivery flight will take place with an Alibaba's logistics partner, Shanghai YTO Express Logistics Co., which will fly a delivery of tea packets from a warehouse in eastern Beijing to the helicopter pad on the top of the China World Trade Center, according to Bloomberg.
We have some trouble believing this one. It wasn't that long ago that a man was arrested for using a drone to film amazing video of various Beijing landmarks, although of course there are licensed and unlicensed drone pilots.
Also, how is this cost effective? Not only is a drone pilot somewhat more skilled than the average delivery person, but a courier is required to go to the site of the delivery anyway to hand the customer their package. That would be like saying a new, self-driving truck will deliver packages around Beijing, except the customer still meets with a delivery company representative to receive it. That doesn't make any sense.
Lastly, while of course over time drones will increase in size and the weight of material they can carry, single drones carrying packages under one kilogram has little value beyond novelty. Think of it this way: how many packages are currently delivered by helicopter?
For now, maybe Alibaba should just concentrate on their stock price.
Photo: Fox News
Visit the original source and full text: the Beijinger Blog | <urn:uuid:657905e4-fce1-4186-816e-710a3a050895> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.chinaexpats.com/16778-alibaba-applies-to-deliver-packages-in-beijing-by-drone/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.95192 | 306 | 1.75 | 2 |
NK-Stim by Ortho Molecular, Inc. 120 count
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- Boosts Immune Response
- Increases the Body’s Natural Killer Cell Activity
- Provides Support for Immune Challenges
- Promotes Healthy Microflora in the GI Tract
Of all the cells that make up the immune system, NK cells are the most aggressive. They make up nearly 15% of the total circulating lymphocyte (white blood cells) population and are part of the body’s innate immune system.
NK-Stim is a targeted formula specifically designed to support the body’s immune response by boosting natural killer (NK) cell activity. NK-Stim includes a synergistic combination of larch arabinogalactan, oleuropein (the active ingredient found in olive leaf extract), acemannan (the immune-stimulating constituent of aloe vera concentrate) and chelated zinc.
2 capsules two times per day or as recommended by your health care professional.
Zinc is known to play a central role in boosting immune response and supports the normal development of natural killer cell activity.
Arabinogalactans are a class of polysaccharides that are abundantly found in the larch tree. As a highly long and densely branched polysaccharide, arabinogalactan has been shown to increase the production of short-chain fatty acids. Since short-chain fatty acids are the primary fuel source of beneficial bacteria found in the gut, arabinogalactan has been shown to promote healthy microflora in the GI tract.
Aloe Vera Concentrate 200:1
Aloe vera is a member of the lily family that has been used topically and orally as a traditional remedy for thousands of years. The active ingredient in aloe, acemannan, is a complex carbohydrate that has been found to be the component responsible for the immune-boosting properties of aloe vera.
Olive Leaf Extract
The olive tree (Olea europaea) produces oleuropein abundantly in its leaves, as well as in the olive fruit itself. Special processing techniques now allow for the extraction of a stable, standardized form of oleuropein. Oleuropein is a potent antioxidant and helps maintain normal inflammatory balance.
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. | <urn:uuid:a35f963b-e40c-48d1-9f61-419cbd4bd43e> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.pavilioncompounding.com/product/nk-stim-by-ortho-molecular-inc-120-count/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.909678 | 553 | 1.6875 | 2 |
It is possible to produce antibody-conjugated NPs that deliver therapeutic providers or are used in imaging and are highly specific for selected cells. additional medicines, in imaging, gene therapies and many additional branches of medicine. They have the potential to revolutionize ONC212 kidney transplantation by reducing and avoiding ischemiaCreperfusion injury, more efficiently delivering medicines to the graft site while avoiding systemic effects, accurately localizing and visualising the diseased site and enabling continuous monitoring of graft function. So far, you will find known nanoparticles with no toxic effects on human cells, although further studies are still needed to confirm their security. (RSV), (HBV), (HCV), (HIV), or bacteria such as or . In turn, platinum NPs combined with antibodies or DNA have wide use in diagnosing viral infections ONC212 caused by as well as others . Recently, due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, a lot of study offers been carried out into using platinum NPs functionalised with aptamer, antibodies or DNA/RNA oligonucleotides to detect severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) illness [48,49,50]. In addition, platinum NPs functionalised with short antigenic epitopes will also be useful in serodiagnosis because they detect the presence of SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibodies, which allow assessing the humoral response to illness or the effectiveness of vaccination . 4.2. Drug Delivery System One of the main and popular functions of NPs is the drug delivery system. Because of the hydrophobicity or instability, some active providers show insufficient bioavailability. NPs are utilised as service providers for some medicines and biological macromolecules (such as peptides, proteins and nucleic acids) improving the pharmacokinetic properties of these molecules . Paclitaxel (Ptx), a highly hydrophobic and water-insoluble taxane, is given to individuals in a solution comprising ethanol and polyoxyethylated castor oil, which can cause improved rate of recurrence of hypersensitivity reactions and ONC212 often requires premedication with antihistamines IL2RA and steroids . Specially designed NPs improve the bioavailability of Ptx. For instance, the albumin-bound, 130 nm particle formulation of Ptx (nanoparticle albumin-bound paclitaxel, nab-Ptx) shows improved solubility in water and allows preparing a drug solution based on physiological saline without using ONC212 toxic solvents. In addition, it has a larger portion of the free form of the drug, which enhances response to treatment . Medical trials in individuals with breast malignancy proven a statistically significant improved rate of total pathological remission with nab-Ptx compared to paclitaxel alone [55,56]. The use of nab-Ptx was also well-tolerated and improved overall survival in individuals with pancreatic malignancy, advanced squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck, or advanced squamous non-small cell lung malignancy [57,58,59]. Drug encapsulation in liposomal NPs prevents untimely drug action before reaching the targeted site, reducing toxicity . In addition, the application of NPs in oncological therapy limits adverse effects of cytotoxic medicines, particularly nausea, vomiting, neutropenia and hypersensitivity reactions . For example, combining doxorubicin (DOX) with liposomal NPs decreases the cardiotoxicity of the anthracycline with maintained antitumor activity in individuals with metastatic breast malignancy [62,63]. NPs acting like a carrier for DOX, an anticancer drug in breast malignancy, reduce the adverse effects of pro/antioxidant imbalances in malignancy and non-cancer cells. The application of fullerene C60 like a carrier for DOX reduces drug-induced metallothionein levels and decreases superoxide dismutase activity. Furthermore, therapy combining NPs with DOX is as effective as with DOX alone. Exposure of breast malignancy cells to the DOXCC60 complex decreased their quantity . MetalCorganic platform NPs with DOX or lipid nanocarriers with Ptx also showed improved security profiles in treating breast or ovarian malignancy [65,66]. Fullerenes may also be a encouraging nanotransporter for medicines. It was verified that C60CDOX complexes increase the cytotoxicity of antineoplastic medicines against breast malignancy cells. Interestingly, DOX was shown to be released from C60 at a lower pH, potentially providing less toxicity to healthy tissues having a less acidic environment [64,67]. Furthermore, the ability to bind ligands such as antibodies to nanocarriers allows for selective, targeted drug delivery to cells with appropriate receptors on their surface. For example, attaching anti-HER2 antibodies to NPs increases the uptake of the molecule by HER2-overexpressing cells, which may enhance the performance of malignancy treatment, while reducing systemic adverse effects [68,69]. The nanocarrier system also increases the performance of the treatment of infectious diseases caused by bacteria, fungi and viruses. The active antimicrobial components combined with NPs include ketoconazole, tobramycin, ciprofloxacin or rifampicin. The advantages of this transport system include improved bioavailability and physical stability or prolonged drug release, which maintains the high antimicrobial activity of the chemotherapeutics . Interestingly, it was demonstrated that metallic NPs themselves have bactericidal properties (antibacterial activity was verified, e.g., for and Escherichia coli) . In vitro studies involving the delivery of amantadine or oseltamivir combined with selenium NPs in the treatment of influenza virus illness showed encouraging results in overcoming the common problem of drug resistance [72,73]. In addition to drug delivery, ligand-functionalised NPs with immunomodulatory properties may be beneficial in the treatment of tuberculosis or. | <urn:uuid:ec37a13f-685d-4117-a972-dfd4703020cb> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://stopvivisection.info/it-is-possible-to-produce-antibody-conjugated-nps-that-deliver-therapeutic-providers-or-are-used-in-imaging-and-are-highly-specific-for-selected-cells/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.906942 | 1,293 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Personal branding is what people think of when they hear your name. It's the gut feeling they get when they see your face or read your blog.
That's why personal branding is so important: because it's the foundation of all your marketing efforts. To build a strong personal brand, you need to start with the basics: who are you, what do you do, and what are your values?
Once you have a clear understanding of these things, you can start to craft your personal brand identity. This includes things like your logo, tagline, website, and social media presence.
It's also important to consider how you want to be perceived by others. Are you an expert in your field? A thought leader? A true original? The way you position yourself will have a big impact on how people perceive your personal brand.
Finally, always keep in mind that personal branding is an ongoing process. As you change and grow, so too will your personal brand. Be prepared to adapt and evolve as needed, and always be authentic to who you are. | <urn:uuid:81e9d1fc-b2ae-42fb-995a-da7e947b0d48> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ups-downs-of-personal-branding/id1508543626?i=1000564205830 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570879.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808213349-20220809003349-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.959104 | 219 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Common to all technological knowledge is the ability to understand the properties and sustainability of the material resources we grow, shape, consume, and transform. A developed knowledge of materials facilitates good choices in design. Such knowledge helps guide what tools or fixture/assembly methods are required to assure an applied idea works in its intended context.
The Tree-with-Binary-code icon, reminds us that
at some stage all our consumed materials and ingredients come from our planet's finite reserves. As with physical materials, knowing the properties of 'digital materials' (such as bitmap versus text versus vector or movie files) requires we use the most appropriate and available digital tools for manipulating their file type.
Physical and digital Materials present both a key resource as well as constraint to the success of a project. | <urn:uuid:05904675-dbb1-48eb-b9e2-d6855ef90830> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.technacy.org/content/materials-treebinary-code | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.918479 | 159 | 2.921875 | 3 |
Mel is located in the province of Belluno, its ancient origins are evidenced by findings from the Paleo-Venetian, Roman and early medieval times, wich are now preserved in the rooms of the Civic Archaeological Museum. Its historic centre is characterised by a harmonious combination of buildings from different eras. This small village with unquestionable charm has recently become part of the small club for the most beautiful villages in Italy.
The imposing Castello di Zumelle stands in the district of Villa di Villa, the only surviving castle in the Belluno area. The building, a military defence garrison, is perched on a cliff and presents visitors with its thirty-six metre high tower. The Castle is surrounded by a welcoming green area where you can enjoy a refreshing picnic or easy walks in the countryside.
Last but not least, we would like to remind you of the successful event that takes place every year in October and which is becoming increasingly popular with the public: Mele a Mel (Apples at Mel). The historic centre is literally invaded by hundreds of exhibitors offering local food and wine specialities, all entertained by music, shows and re-enactments of ancient traditions and mysteries. | <urn:uuid:3843de24-533a-46f5-9606-3bb9d2fd7549> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.veneto.eu/EN/Mel/?s=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570879.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808213349-20220809003349-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.965433 | 242 | 1.523438 | 2 |
1. This microscope costs less than a dollar to makeEngineers at Stanford University developed a paper-based microscope called the Foldscope that costs less than a dollar to produce for cheap field diagnostics.
Manu Prakash and Jim Cybulski created a foldable microscope in 2014 that was made mostly of paper and had a cost of goods of less than a dollar. By December 2015, they founded Foldscope Instruments to scale up production of the microscope while releasing other inexpensive scientific tools.
The Foldscope was designed by combining the principles of optical design with origami. Recent advances in micro-optics and flat manufacturing are used for large-scale production of the microscope, according to a 2014 PLOS journal article about it.
It is an origami-based optical microscope that can be built from a flat sheet of paper in under 10 minutes. It has over 2,000 times magnification with submicron resolution and weighs less than two nickels. It is also small enough to fit in a pocket and doesn’t use any external power. Durability tests have shown that it can survive being dropped from a three-story building and being stepped on by a person.
To use the Foldscope, users insert a sample mounted on a microscopic slide and turn on the LED. Samples can be viewed while panning and focusing using their thumbs. Users can view the sample by putting their eye close enough to touch their eyebrow to the paper and looking into the micro lens. | <urn:uuid:7521b1e3-4a84-4ea8-8bc3-234bfebc12b3> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.medicaldesignandoutsourcing.com/diagnostic-devices-developing-world/2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.962977 | 301 | 3.609375 | 4 |
Police Brutality, Profiling, and the Two Mikes
On the one-year anniversary of the Rodney King trial, my son, John was home for spring break with a fellow student. We were living in Shirley about a mile or so from Smith Point Beach. At the time, they were both music students and had been working on music all day. By ten pm they had worked up quite a thirst on this unseasonably warm April night, and decided to walk the couple of blocks to Seven Eleven to get a drink.
They were in a jovial mood, so they were parodying Mozart’s opera, Don Giovanni in pseudo operatic voices. As they turned the corner, they noticed a car parked on the grass with two men inside. A man dressed all in white got out of the car and said something like,
“Who said do you smell pork?” My son and his friend ignored him, thinking it was just some troublemaker out looking for a fight. Then the man shouted,
“Hey, big mouth, I’m talking to you!” Another man had gotten out of the car and he was wearing all white as well. At this point John, who is mixed, black and Italian, became afraid, thinking that they were members of the Klan or something and both bigger than him. So having been a track star, he did what he was trained to do, he ran. He ran as fast as he could until he was cut off by a police van. Thinking that the police had come to his assistance, John pointed to his pursuers and said,
“Those are the ones you want!” It quickly became apparent that the police were there to arrest, not assist him. Without knowing what crime he had committed, he raised his hands in surrender. At no time had the undercover cops in their unmarked car ever identified themselves as officers of the law. Without hesitation he was thrown to the ground, handcuffed, and beaten by at least four officers, including one woman. He was put into a chokehold so tight, that if he hadn’t bitten someone’s hand, he was certain that he would have died.
John’s friend, a white boy, was not the runner that John was and was quickly apprehended and put in the unmarked car. It was only when he yelled for them to stop, did they stop beating my son. Only the two undercover cops were even aware of an observer. Then the verbal abuse began. A threat of being left over night in a cell with a large oversexed cellmate with a large sexual organ is my polite way of stating what they actually said to him. They asked him who he thought he was, Rodney King. They informed him that there were no video cameras there. When he demanded to have his rights read to him, they said,
“Who do you think you are, Martin Luther King?” Then two officers ominously entered the back seat of the police car where they had placed him, from each side and hit him in the crotch with their police radios. When my son smelled beer on their breath and accused them of being drunk, they were arrogant enough to admit that they had had a couple of beers before duty.
It was an incidence of profiling. In his case, he and his friend were pretending to sing opera and the undercover cops assumed that they were on drugs and possibly carrying them. The irony of this whole situation is that if my son had spent less time on his studies, practicing his instrument, or running track, and more time hanging out and using drugs, he probably would have realized that they were undercover cops and not run.
John was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest and told that if he stayed out of trouble for six months, there would be no charge and a sealed record. That he had no arrest record and twenty letters of character, should have made it clear that my son had never been in any trouble before and was therefore unlikely to get into trouble within the following six months.
My sorrow and frustration fomented into a deep and scathing hatred of cops. It mattered little what ethnicity. To me the word cop was synonymous with corruption, brutality, and everything bad in the world. I knew that I was profiling cops just like they had profiled my son but I felt justified because of the atrocity they had committed upon him.
A few years later, I was teaching at a high school. I drove an adapted van that was equipped with hand controls and a lift that hoisted my three- wheeled scooter into the rear. I have secondary progressive multiple sclerosis, which gradually worsens. It was becoming increasingly more difficult for me to walk to the back of my van with a walker to retrieve my scooter. Upon witnessing how arduous this procedure was for me, a school security guard asked if I needed help. I refused and when he asked again, I refused again. After all, what was a security guard but a wannabe cop? One day he saw my van pull into the parking spot and just came over, opened the back of my van, took the scooter out and brought it right to me.
“So okay,” I consoled myself, feeling very grateful for his help. “He isn’t actually a real cop”. Exchanging pleasantries, he told me that his name was Mike. He mentioned that this job was his part-time job and he had to leave early to get to his full time job, which was… yes you guessed it, a New York City police officer. Cognitive dissonance set in. I was unable to reconcile my vitriolic mindset with my gratitude and that I actually liked the guy. He was interesting, soft spoken and pleasant. He was a Kung Fu master and spoke Chinese although he was not Asian. He was Buddhist and went to China every year to study with a teacher. So what I did then was what every prejudiced person does when they discover an individual who doesn’t fit the profile of those individuals they perceive as undesirable. I made him a special case. I told myself that Mike was different, not like the other cops.
As the bitter winter set in I was forced to find another location for parking. Reluctantly I chose another spot and braced myself for the onerous task of trudging through slush to the back of my van and retrieving my scooter on my own, because Mike was posted at a different location. As I pulled into the new spot, another security guard asked if I needed assistance and this time I agreed without resistance. The man informed me that he was Big Mike and the other one, although he towered over him was Little Mike. Big Mike was middle aged and affectionately called the other Mike, Grasshopper. He was interesting as well. He designed and made wood furniture. He was witty, humorous and yes he was also a cop, but retired.
The weather was abominable that winter but Big Mike shivered with me through rain and snow. Always cheerful, with pleasant conversation he escorted me up to the door and opened it for me.
John eventually changed majors and graduated from Cornell University with a double degree in physics and engineering. He is an accomplished string bassist, a wood carver, and a prize- winning photographer. He is an electrical engineer and designs software. He is a true Renaissance man. What he experienced was horrendous and should never have happened but he at least got the opportunity to live his life and fulfill his potential.
The fact that my son was home on Spring break from college, which he attended on an academic scholarship, is as irrelevant as the fact that Trayvon Martin was an honor student. Trayvon Martin died because he was profiled as a criminal. As far as I’m concerned, he didn’t deserve to die that way if he had been caught coming out of a condo with a flat screen, or even if he was a troublemaker in school, failed all his classes, and was dealing drugs on the corner. Let the punishment fit the crime.
Individuals are unique, multifaceted and complex. You can hardly know the person who shares your breakfast table nonetheless, someone you’ve never even seen before. We need to continually examine and reexamine, our thoughts, intentions and motives if we are to move forward as a society. Whether you believe that Zimmerman was justified and defending his life, or a cold-blooded killer, one thing rings true, if he hadn’t profiled Trayvon Martin as a criminal, he would have never pursued him and Trayvon would not have died. The crime was profiling, and of this crime we are all complicit. | <urn:uuid:ec410a5f-b7fd-43e4-872d-d1b6d4f78bd9> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://literaryprize.danspapers.com/police-brutality-profiling-and-the-two-mikes/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570651.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20220807150925-20220807180925-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.993223 | 1,790 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Although choosing a puppy might sound like an easy task (they’re all cute and fluffy right?!), the selection of a puppy should be very carefully considered. Bringing up a puppy is not always an easy task and they can require a lot of time and patience. However, the process should be fun! By thinking about the breed type and energy of dog you are bringing home (more on this later) and your individual requirements and lifestyle as an owner, the following tips should help to make your puppy selection and parenting a little easier, better informed, and hopefully make it a little less likely for you to run into problems along the way!
Choosing the correct breed for your lifestyle and needs
Before heading to your nearest breeder or rescue centre, it is important to consider what breed of dog best suits your everyday lifestyle and needs. Would you like your future dog to accompany you every day in an active, outdoor lifestyle or are you looking for a dog to confidently join you in coffee shop escapades? Similarly, you might be wanting a dog to take life at a steadier pace with you, perhaps joining you for a snuggle on the sofa of an evening, or maybe you’d like your dog to fit into a bustling family home, running happily around with the family in the garden. What do you require? This is the question you must have in the forefront of your mind when selecting the right breed of dog for your lifestyle and family home. It is important to match your energy levels, social life, and family needs with your chosen dog. Thoroughly researching your preferred breed or breed type (by type – think hunting breeds, guarding breeds etc) of dog will give you an insight into whether this breed is indeed right for you. Another good tip is to actively seek out owners of your preferred breed and ask them questions about their lifestyle with their dog. Does it match your own? What do they have to say about the needs of their dog? What are the pros and cons of the breed or type of dog? Does this sound like it would suit your lifestyle? Your local community, dog training school and social media (think: breed specific groups and pages) can be fantastic resources for finding owners and those knowledgeable about the breed to talk to. Put time into this.
Remember, unlike humans, dogs develop extremely quickly and your cute bundle of fur can soon become a mature, much larger adult. It is important to make sure that your fully grown, four-legged best friend is able to fit into your desired lifestyle.
Choosing the right breed of dog
Although you might think that nurture always wins over nature, this is unfortunately not always the case. Just like us humans are all born differently and with different needs, likes and dislikes, individual dogs will have different personality traits also. Often, this is determined by breed however puppies within a litter can also vary in their personalities and energy levels. Firstly, however, when considering a puppy, it is important to consider what your particular breed or type of dog was originally bred for. For example, Labrador Retrievers were originally built for retrieving fisherman’s nets off of Labrador, which is a region within the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. This typically makes Labrador’s great swimmers, retrievers and very willing but also, when from working blood lines, also typically high in energy. If considering a dog from working blood lines (think husky, working cocker spaniel, some cockerpoos, lurcher, German shepherd and many others), it is crucial to consider how you will tailor your day to meet their exercise needs – both in terms of physical and mental stimulation. Without the right level of stimulation, you may find that your dog places this energy into unwanted behaviours, finding themselves a ‘job’ to do due to boredom or even putting excess energy into ‘worrying’ and stressing about things it needn’t have to. However, with the right level of stimulation, you could find your dog an absolute joy to spend time with, a great companion and a loyal friend.
It is important to stress that the breeding heritage of your chosen dog does not always determine their development, character traits or any behavioural issues, however it is extremely important to consider these attributes when choosing a puppy and deciding how you might work to ensure you are able to bring up your puppy to be a well-rounded, well-mannered and confident dog.
Choosing the right ‘energy’ of dog
In addition to carefully choosing your breed, another key consideration when selecting a puppy is selecting the right energy level. Although the breed of a dog should give you a good indication of the energy level, energy levels of dogs within the same litter can also vary. As a general guide, a good breeder should be able to tell you an individual puppy’s traits and characteristics within the litter. Consider your needs as an owner. Some puppies in the litter may benefit from a more experienced owner than others. For example, a very shy puppy who might be prone to being nervous, or a very bold puppy that might benefit from a confident owner with an active lifestyle.
Finding a breeder
Once you have considered which breed and energy of dog is right for your lifestyle, it is important to find a reputable breeder or rescue centre. As with selecting the right breed of dog for you, this task should be carried out with care and be thoroughly researched. As a general guide, the following are good indicators of a reputable breeder:
1) The breeder should welcome any questions that you have as well as ask questions of you
The puppies should be, after all, their pride and joy. They should want them to go to the best homes possible. This does not necessarily mean who will ‘love’ them the most, but instead who will be most able to fulfil the dog’s needs and provide the dog with the correct environment, mental stimulation, physical stimulation and experiences. Polite interrogation should be welcomed and should be viewed as a positive thing!
2) The breeder should be able to show you the bitch and any relevant paperwork associated with them
In relation to the sire, you should expect to see any relevant paperwork and pictures if the dog is not available for viewing. For pedigree and some cross-breed litters, you should expect to see the breed history of both the bitch and the sire. It is also useful to observe the bitch (and the sire too if available). If this adult dog matches the type of dog you are looking for in terms of temperament and personality, this gives you a good indication of whether a puppy from this litter is likely to grow into the dog you would like to be part of your family. Other useful observations are those of any dogs the breeder has previously bred and homed. If you are able to, speaking to the owners of these dogs will also help you to make your decision as to whether this is the right puppy for you.
3) The breeder should demonstrate a secure knowledge of what they are selling
By this I don’t just mean what the dog looks like or typically behaves like as a breed. Instead, the breeder should also be able to talk you through this history and the bloodline descendants registered on any paperwork. The breeder should also offer their thoughts on whether a puppy from the litter is right for you and, if so, which puppy in the litter would best suit you. Their choice should be based on solid reasoning in regards to the puppy’s temperament and personality traits.
4) The breeder should allow you to visit their establishment and the puppies on multiple occasions
They should be willing to spend time with you and allow you to spend time with your puppy. Whilst you are visiting, they might also allow you to carry out activities that will help you to create a seamless transition from their establishment to your home. This might be as simple as allowing you to introduce a blanket with your scent on it to the puppy, or allowing you to introduce the puppy to your car (with it off and stationary) so that they become familiar with this environment before having to travel in it. The more you can see, experience and understand your puppy’s world, and vice versa, the better!
5) The breeder should provide evidence that they have wormed the puppy and provide you with a vaccination plan
Some breeders will provide the first vaccination, others may not. In either case, the breeder should clearly outline their requirements for vaccinating the puppy against harmful diseases.
6) The breeder should be able to tell you how they are enriching the lives of the puppies on a daily basis
Look for good nutrition, hygiene and positive exposure to enrichment activities.
7) The breeder should ask you to sign a contract of sale, often outlining their expectations of you as an owner
As with any important purchase in life, you should expect to receive a contract of sale. This should outline both the breeder’s responsibilities as well as your own.
8) The breeder should be willing to give you a receipt for your purchase
Puppies are often not cheap, and shouldn’t be! Raising a puppy correctly can cost a lot of money, not to mention take a lot of time. As with any other big purchase, you should expect a receipt.
9) The breeder should only allow you to take your puppy home once it has reached eight weeks of age
Any earlier is not healthy for your puppy and is not in their best interest.
10) The breeder should be willing to help you find your dog a new home should you ever find yourself in a situation where you are no longer able to keep them
Should you ever run into difficulties, a reputable breeder should want to know and should offer to try to help you to find a suitable home. Just like when they first allowed you to purchase the dog from them, they should want to know about any potential new owners.
Taking your puppy home – what happens next?!
So, you have done your research, spent time selecting the right puppy and have brought a puppy home. The investment doesn’t stop there! Think again about what sort of dog you would like your puppy to grow into and take positive steps to make this happen by embarking on a good training course. Whether this is self-guided or at a reputable dog training centre, remember that training is not a 6 week ‘quick fix’ and will take much longer. As with children, sending them only to Nursery School will not fully educate them. Whilst puppy training is crucial, your training should then progress and adapt to each of your dog’s life stages. Have patience, practice daily and stay consistent. Most of all, ENJOY the process and your puppy as they grow and develop! | <urn:uuid:b0e83539-9e60-4898-9c29-2aa6d3c19c6e> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.dog-ease.co.uk/how-to-choose-the-right-puppy/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573533.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818215509-20220819005509-00264.warc.gz | en | 0.963892 | 2,222 | 1.84375 | 2 |
A tech startup incubated at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Hyderabad won Rs. 25 lakhs in funding at ‘Open Innovation Challenge 2019’.
A tech startup incubated at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Hyderabad won Rs. 25 lakhs in funding at ‘Open Innovation Challenge 2019’ of India Innovation Growth Programme (IIGP) 2.0. The start-up named BeAble was coined by students from the first batch of Healthcare Entrepreneurship at Centre for Healthcare Entrepreneurship (CfHE) – IIT Hyderabad. The start-up intends to rehabilitate stroke patients through the usage of good technology and design.
More than 1600 applications were received for IIGP 2.0 Open Innovation Challenge 2019. BeAble received a seed grant of Rs 25 lakhs for its market penetration and scale-up operations, a statement from Hyderabad stated. The IIGP 2.0 is a three-party initiative of American global defense manufacturer Lockheed Martin, Government of India, Department of Science and Technology (DST) and Tata Trusts.
Prof. Renu John, Co-Head of CfHE and Head, Department of Biomedical Engineering, IIT Hyderabad while congratulating BeAble said, “The Center for Healthcare Entrepreneurship (CfHE), IIT Hyderabad, is focused entirely on boosting healthcare innovation in India. BeAble is one such example of an innovative start-up coming out from the CfHE and we are sure they will make a positive impact on Indian healthcare sector. IIT Hyderabad looks forward to incubating many more successful start-ups through CfHE.” | <urn:uuid:7f1b6c09-b3a8-471e-8f8a-7040340704c0> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.edualmanac.com/2019/07/24/tech-start-up-from-iit-hyderabad-fetches-rs-25-lakh-at-innovation-challenge/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.93656 | 343 | 1.523438 | 2 |
We all know the importance of keeping the body properly hydrated. Consuming about 2 liters of water a day helps ensure that the cells, tissues and organs are working optimally, and also toxins and waste materials are kept from accumulating.
Maintaining proper hydration means drinking up to 8 glasses of water per day — juice, coffee, tea and especially soft drinks, sports drinks and alcoholic beverages do not count!
Did you know that water you can drink come in many different types?
Read on if you think that consuming water is boring and that’s why you resort to glugging down unhealthy types of beverages — below you will come across the various types of water that you may count on each time you are feeling thirsty.
Feel free to share this article on your different social media sites especially if you feel that some of your family members and friends are not drinking enough water on an everyday basis.
It’s the most accessible and cheapest type of water that you can drink. In most parts of the United States, drinking tap water is completely safe.
If you believe that water treatment in your area is not worthy of your trust, you may simply invest in a high quality home filtration system to make sure that tap water you are about to drink is free of contaminants that may wreak havoc on your health. Or you may go for any of the water types discussed below.
Water that’s been purified via filtration systems is referred to as purified water. Purified water can be tap water or water obtained from other sources, such as groundwater.
The problem with purifying water is it eliminates not only contaminants but also anything else that’s added by water treatment facilities to tap water like fluoride, which is something that helps fend off cavities.
Distilled water is just like purified water, except for the fact that it involves a process called distillation — water is boiled and then the steam produced is collected and then condensed.
The nicest thing about distilled water is it’s very pure and thus very safe to drink. Sadly, it is devoid of minerals that come with health perks, which means that the only benefit offered by distilled water is hydration of your body.
Just like what the name says, mineral water is something that contains naturally-occurring minerals in water such as magnesium, calcium and potassium. So in other words, mineral water not only hydrates your body but also supplies it with trace amounts of minerals.
As expected, mineral water is not as cheap as tap water. Besides, you can also obtain minerals present in mineral water from various food sources — having a well-balanced diet is key.
A lot of health-conscious people opt for alkaline water these days as its consumption is believed to help reduce blood acidity by means of alkaline minerals added to it. Experts say that too much acid in the blood is associated with so many health nightmares.
Unfortunately, there’s not enough evidence that the consumption of alkaline water can in fact reduce blood acidity. Health authorities say that its intake may even reduce stomach acid, which may hamper proper digestion and also elimination of harmful bacteria in the food you eat.
If the reason why you prefer carbonated drinks over water is the fact that they are more interesting to consume, then you may consider going for sparkling water. Also known as soda water or carbonated water, it is fizzy due to the addition of carbon dioxide.
While it’s true that drinking sparkling water is a delight, there are a couple of cons that come with its intake. First, it doesn’t come with a cheap price tag. Second, it’s a terrible idea for you to go for it if you are suffering from bloating, acid reflux or gastroesophageal reflux disease or GERD.
Also sometimes referred to as infused water, flavored water contains natural or artificial flavorings and sweeteners. It’s because of this why drinking it is always interesting.
The problem with flavored water is it’s usually expensive. What’s more, the presence of added ingredients may harm one’s health. For instance, you may have a hard time managing your blood glucose levels if the brand you like contains sugar. The good news is it’s easy to make flavored water at home by adding slices of fruits to a pitcher of water. | <urn:uuid:b273968a-1933-491d-96a0-70c049e2876d> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.healthybuilderz.com/are-you-aware-of-the-different-types-of-water-you-can-drink/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.96303 | 934 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Distance: 2.6 miles, Yoga
AMC Metreon, Theater 12 Entrance
Walk right in, sit right down, go back 100 years to the front lines of World War I in Peter Jackson's movie They Shall Not Grow Old. Like many people Ciwt has studied World War I history and read some of the greatest books about it like All Quiet on the Western Front, The Guns of August, Birdsong. So she felt she had some mental picture of that war. Until today when Jackson showed her the vast difference between intellectually knowing and actually witnessing.
Through sheer love, dedication, technical innovation and peristence Jackson took old WWI film footage and 1960's interviews with survivors 'as is' (ie, shrunken, scratched, nearly black, barely audible and other ravages of age), applied virtual technical wizardry and came up with a coherently plotted, well paced, narrated, scored 'contemporary' documentary. Thanks to him, You Are There, looking directly at and listening to the young soldiers, horses, trenches, battlefields of World War I. The horrors are all there but handled in such a way that you don't look away, and there is so much more: dailiness, humor and play (yes!), nobility, duty among them none of it sensationalized. You Are Engrossed, and your horizons and humanity are vastly, vastly expanded.
Thank you, Mr.Jackson . | <urn:uuid:6493813b-0c6d-4b4f-a3a6-c1e6e924eb15> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.caniwalkthere.com/2019/02/revival-day-7326.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.941579 | 291 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Grand Canyon, Ariz. — The public is invited to join in the celebration of the 95th birthday of the National Park Service (NPS) on Thursday, August 25, 2011 at Grand Canyon National Park where special programs will highlight the National Park Service’s mission and history.
When Yellowstone became the world’s first national park in 1872, there was no National Park Service; and when the need for on-site management of the park became apparent, the Department of War was tasked with its protection. In the decades that followed, more national parks, monuments and reserves were created and additional agencies became involved in their protection, including the General Land Office and the US Forest Service. With different missions, these agencies often managed the parks and other federal lands that they were in charge of in different ways. Clearly, people began to argue, a single federal agency was needed; and in 1916, when President Woodrow Wilson signed the National Park Service Organic Act, the NPS was finally established. By the time the Grand Canyon was declared a national park in 1919, after being established as a Federal Preserve in 1893, and a National Monument in 1908, the National Park Service was ready to protect this great national treasure.
The NPS was created to “promote and regulate the use of the Federal areas known as national parks, monuments and reservations…” and “…to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wildlife therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.” (1916 Organic Act)
Today there are nearly 400 park units across the United States; and the NPS’ more than 20,000 employees work diligently to preserve, protect, and share them with the public. Within Grand Canyon National Park, almost 500 of those employees protect not only the park’s geologic landscape and spectacular views, but endangered species like the humpback chub http://www.nps.gov/grca/naturescience/shinumotransloc.htm, the sentry milk vetch http://www.nps.gov/grca/naturescience/astragalus.htm, and the California condor http://www.nps.gov/grca/naturescience/california-condors.htm.
Thursday’s celebration will include programs that share the history and mission of the NPS as well as the exploration, history and value of Grand Canyon National Park. Programs will be offered throughout the day and include:
- 8:30 a.m. Guided Hike – Grand Canyon Speaks Volumes
- 10:00 History Talk -Women and the NPS: Pillbox Hats, Miniature Badges and Go-go Boots
- 1:30 p.m. Rim Walk
- 1:30 Mather Point Talk – Ranger Stories
- 2:30 Porch Talk – The NPS Arrowhead Symbol
- 3:00 Mather Point Talk
- 6:30 Campfire Talk – Singing Through History
- 8:00 Evening Program – Into the Great Unknown: John Wesley Powell’s River Trip through Grand Canyon
We will also have several additional programs:
- 9:30 a.m. Pioneer Cemetery Tour – Making a Difference at Grand Canyon
- 10:30 Kolb Studio Tour
- 11:00 Historic Village Walking Tour – Mary Colter’s Influence on Park Architecture
- 12:30 p.m. Kolb Studio Tour
- 2:30 Kolb Studio Tour
For more on Grand Canyon’s Founders Day Celebration, please contact Supervisory Ranger Libby Schaaf at 928-638-7641, [email protected] For more on how Grand Canyon became a national park, visit our web site at
http://www.nps.gov/grca/historyculture/adhigrca.htm; and for information on
visiting Grand Canyon National Park, please call 928-638-7888 or visit us
on the web at www.nps.gov/grca. | <urn:uuid:eb237239-12ed-42fe-8582-ac3a388a0697> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.actionhub.com/news/2011/08/22/grand-canyon-to-celebrate-birth-of-the-national-park-service/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570879.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808213349-20220809003349-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.930753 | 859 | 3.328125 | 3 |
The 40th plebiscite in the Second Republic (title: “We decide”) wants the inclusion of the referendum as an unrestricted right of the electorate in the Austrian Federal Constitution.
From 100,000 votes onwards, a mandatory plebiscite on legal propositions should be possible. In the future, the so-called noncommittal referendum can also lead to a binding plebiscite. Parliament must first decide within six months.
Powerlessness can lead to extremes, and this must be prevented by an increase of democracy!
It is not enough for a mature, honest, real democracy to vote for the parliament every five years (National Council elections). Even the proposals now made in the government on a “Volksbegehren neu” (“Referendum New”) are by no means sufficient.
Our democracy needs decisions both taken and abided by jointly through the people’s representatives (parliament) and our citizens.
Of course Parliament should not be made obsolete! However, we citizens should be given the opportunity to intervene in Parliament’s decisions if they do not correspond to the wishes of the majority of the citizens.
The possibility of preventing a parliamentary bill by means of a citizen’s vote is intended to prompt our people’s representatives to make their decisions by including the citizens more than currently and therefore to provide them with sufficient information and involve them in the preparation.
Undemocratic decision-making processes can thus be prevented.
What is new?
The National Council must make a decision within six months by means of a referendum. A referendum on this decision will also be possible.
At the moment Parliament has to deal with a referendum, but does not decide. So, at the moment, referendums are not binding.
Our goal: No law against the will of the citizens.
The possibility to demand a referendum against parliamentary resolutions (right of appeal) would already be the yellow card, which discourages the parliament from holding something against the majority of the electorate.
For this reason, projects are to be discussed intensively with the interested population, at least from the governmental decision, but better still earlier. If this would not happen and Parliament would do something without having the consent of the citizens, the red card threatens by means of a veto against the parliamentary resolution by plebiscite.
Many very important details will have to be settled in execution laws. For this, see the already existing implementing laws of the countries, which are already familiar with the before mentioned corrective (e.g. Lower Austria, Burgenland or Vorarlberg).
With these new regulations, we Austrians have a binding, truly democratic instrument in our hands, which we can use, if necessary, to set a new course for the future or even for a political corrective.
This is of crucial socio-political significance for the future of our democracy. Why? Because, contrary to the political promises and plights, our country does not develop further in many fundamental areas.
We citizens thus gain that influence that should be self-evident in each democracy.
The society ACHT (www.acht-austria.com). Independently. Non-party. Absolutely incorruptible.
We want power to really come from the people. In the sense of an honest, true democracy.
1. Compulsory referendums are already envisaged in numerous constitutions, including in Austrian federal constitutions.
2. The current government has also acknowledged more citizens’ participation in its program.
In concrete terms, it says: “The coalition is committed to the sensible addition of representative democracy through direct-democratic institutions”.
We therefore demand nothing “impossible” or even “absurd”, but to a certain extent only the fulfillment of the corresponding coalition agreement. •
Mag. Thomas Rathammer, chairman of the association ACHT
RA Dr Karl-Heinz Plankel, Vice-President and press officer of the association ACHT
Prof DI Dr Heinz Wohlmeyer, Cashier association ACHT
DDr Karl Lengheimer, Austrian constitutional expert
For further information please contact: RA Dr. Karl-Heinz Plankel, A-1010 Vienna, Bartensteingasse 16/11, Tel.: +43 1 4020925,
For more information, visit <link http: www.acht-austria.com>www.acht-austria.com
(Translation Current Concerns)
A referendum on a bill is also to be carried out if at least 100,000 eligible voters of the collectively enfranchised people demand it. Moreover, a plebiscite on a bill or another resolution to be taken by the National Council for the execution of a referendum shall be taken within six months, if required by 100,000 signatories of the plebiscite or other eligible voters.
This federal law also has to regulate the cases in which a popular vote on a bill has to be omitted because of danger in delay.
(Translation Current Concerns)
If you want to prevent the setting of cookies (for example, Google Analytics), you can set this up by using this browser add-on. | <urn:uuid:585c9b67-94f4-4097-8718-04e7013066d5> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.zeit-fragen.ch/en/archives/2017/no-8-4-april-2017/we-decide | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.926017 | 1,168 | 2.359375 | 2 |
About Orthopaedics and Arthritis
- Home |
- About Orthopaedics and Arthritis
Orthopaedics, additionally called orthopaedics surgeons, may be a specialist concerned in maintaining and restoring the performance of the skeleton and connected structures like spine and different bones, joints and muscles.
Arthritis may be a common condition that causes pain and inflammation within the joints. It affects individuals of all age groups.
Causes of inflammatory disease embrace joint injury, metabolic disorders, genetic disorders, and system disorders.
Treatment sometimes involves pain and joint quality as well as surgeries physical therapy, Medication and surgeries like Arthroscopy, joint replacement.
Why to attend this conference?
Be the first to showcase your research, innovations and the brand to attain competitive advantages. Meet your target audience and explore your knowledge about the research work.
Build your professional network.
Know about the latest research.
Improve your presentation and communication skills.
Get response on an early version of your latest research work.
Acquire knowledge beyond your field or interest.
Get opportunity to meet people
Researchers and Professors can contribute their speaker presentations, poster presentations, and host the International Conference as a team at the Orthopaedic 2022 Conference. Association Partnership, Collaboration with our International events as Committee Members, Speakers, and Delegates, Academic collaborations, and Group Participation are all opportunities provided by the Organizing Committee to Universities, Associations, and Societies. Students and Research Scholars can also participate in oral and poster presentations, student delegate participation, and group registrations. Our Conference Committee also allows business experts to share their valuable contributions as speakers, keynote speakers.
International Conference and Expo on Orthopaedics and Arthritis have been scheduled on October 17-18, 2022 | Barcelona, Spain with the theme “Enlightening the global health challenges in Orthopaedic and Arthritis”. This conference mainly discusses about the methods and management of treatments and new innovations in treatments. The recent trends in treatment after COVID19 and its effects on all age groups and its outcomes
Rheumatology Health Professional
Orthopedic Research Fellows
Directors and Chair Persons
Health Care Professionals in Orthopedics and Rheumatology
Orthopedic Medical Colleges, Universities
Software making associations
Manufacturing Medical Devices Companies
Orthopedics and Rheumatology Research Institutes
Orthopedics and Rheumatology Societies & Associations
University Of California-San Fransisco
Johns Hopkins University
University Of Pennsylvania Perelman
University Of Washington
University Of California-Los Angeles
University Of Michigan-Ann Arbor
University Of Pittsburgh
University Of Chicago
Mayo Clinic College Of Medicine And Science (Alix)
Assosications and societies:
Asia Pacific Orthopaedic Association
Australian Society of Orthopaedic Surgeons
Canadian Orthopaedic Association
Canadian Orthopaedic Trauma Society
Egyptian Orthopaedic Association
British Orthopaedic Association
British Association for Surgery of the Knee
British Orthopaedic Trainees Association
British Society for Children's Orthopaedic Surgery
Societa Italiana di Ortopedia e Traumatologia
Japanese Orthopaedic Association
Sociedad Espanola de Cirugia Ortopedica y Traumatologia
Osteoarthritis Research Society International
European Alliance of associations for Rheumatology
International League of associations for Rheumatology
Osteoarthritis World Association | <urn:uuid:0a6b43ac-9e6f-420d-9237-92669988f172> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.hilarisconferences.com/orthopedics-arthritis/about | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570879.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808213349-20220809003349-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.828947 | 807 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Published on April 21st, 2013 | by Daniel Sherman Fernandez0
Renault 15 and 17, Still See A Couple Running Around
The year was 1971 and French car manufacturer, Renault had a sexy looking coupé ready. This was the Renault 15 and Renault 17. Using the same platform and running gear, they were 2 variations of the same car designed and built between 1971 and 1980. They were effectively coupé versions of the Renault 12. The main difference between the two cars was their headlight configuration – the 15 had two rectangular headlights whereas the 17 had four round headlights. The Renault 15 and 17 were presented at the Paris Motor Show in October 1971. It sold in Malaysia in small numbers at a time when the British car industry was leading in Malaysia. The Ford Capri and the MG cars were more desirable.
Still, this Renault had a few happy owners. The chassis and most of the running gear came from the Renault 12, while the 1565cc 108bhp engine in the more powerful R17 TS and R17 Gordini models was derived from the engine in the Renault 16 TS. Though the mechanicals of the cars were derived from other Renaults, the body was completely new. The R15 and R17 remained in production until 1979 when they were both replaced by the Renault Fuego which looked much more modern and inviting. | <urn:uuid:4903d3f8-2999-416b-960e-1e4f211c7418> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.dsf.my/2013/04/renault-15-and-17-still-see-a-couple-running-around/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.987581 | 273 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Drowning the Dead
Waterlogged land and shrinking burial space confront persons looking for space in Roseau cemeteries for loved ones eternal rest
As a grave digger for 13 years, Clayton Hector knows better than most how difficult it is to find space to bury the dead; how challenging it is for families of the faithfully departed to have peace of mind that their loved ones will have an appropriate spot for their eternal rest.
Hector is particularly familiar with the situation in the capital, Roseau, where the already limited confines of both the Roman Catholic and public cemeteries are being shrunk by rising waters and growing shrubbery.
"I know the area, it's my life," a passionate Hector tells The Sun.
He also knows where to dig, he says. But even then, digging often results in some uncomfortable discoveries.
"Some people dig and find bodies which are not properly decomposed, and that is an issue especially since the tombs are not marked," Hector reveals. "People are also making noise not wanting us to bury their loved ones in the waterlogged area and we have such [water] in the Catholic cemetery and also the public cemetery.
"The public cemetery always has lots of grass which always needs clearing. The Catholic cemetery is not bad, the space is reasonable, you just have to know where to look to dig."
The problems posed by inadequate burial grounds are nothing new, as identified in a survey conducted by then chief physical planner, Raphael Francis, several years ago.
The date of the survey is not immediately clear, but Anthony Scotland, the chief environmental health officer, referred to it in July 2014 when he spoke of the "lack of burial space" at the Massacre cemetery and the domino effect it was having on surrounding communities.
"He has a lot of good recommendations," Scotland said at the time without elaborating.
But he also indicated then that "we are still faced with the space issue and Massacre burial ground is almost filled". Therefore, he said, the ministry of communications and works would pursue the opening of a cemetery in Mahaut before closing the Massacre cemetery, with plans to revisit it "after a couple of years".
Four years later, the now retired Scotland is still talking about getting the Mahaur cemetery fully operational to "ease up the strain" on the burial grounds in Roseau. "The infiltration of the water in the public cemetery and also into parts of the Catholic cemetery in Roseau all stems from the Roseau River and is a major issue because when graves are dug water is now rising up, so a survey needs to be done to deal with this problem," he tells The Sun.
Scotland again floats the idea of cremation, a practice that is growing in popularity in countries like Barbados, where traditional burials are losing ground, partly because cremation is less costly.
"Given what is going on we need a crematory in Dominica which is an alternative to burial. What we need is to set a standard for the crematory so people can use it," he recommends. Globally, the average cost of cremation is one-third that of a burial. Scotland also proposes the use of family plots for interments, as long as the environmental health department certifies the plot and records are kept "of all where you bury people in a cemetery since you have seven years before digging".
"I went to a funeral in Massacre and the grave was fresh. All the body parts was available and not decomposed."
In his report Francis had pointed to the obvious "serious shortage of land space" for interment, "more pronounced" in Roseau, Massacre, St. Joseph, Pointe Michel, Colihaut, and to some extent, Coulibishie, along the west coast, along with Portsmouth, La Plaine and Grand Bay.
"The problem of Roseau is most critical and needs to be dealt with immediately. Besides the settlements within its zone of influence with a total population of approximately 20,000 in recent times since 2003 Roseau has had to deal with a further 6,000 population of Mahaut, Massacre and Canefield areas. The resolution of the problem of the City of Roseau rest with the immediate establishment of cemeteries to serve the village of Mahaut, particularly with the imminent closure of the Massacre cemetery and the Canefield area," he said.
Francis had also recommended that church and local authorities develop a tracer or marking system to guard against graves being dug prior to the seven years prescribed in the regulations and to enable maximum utilisation of space, particularly in cemeteries under stress. | <urn:uuid:325ccaf1-c963-4a76-bf37-dc011958eae7> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://sundominica.com/articles/drowning-the-dead-4898/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.974997 | 952 | 1.867188 | 2 |
“The seminary is a time when you learn with one another and from one another. In community life, which can at times be difficult, you should learn generosity and tolerance, not only bearing with, but also enriching one another, so that each of you will be able to contribute his own gifts to the whole, even as all serve the same Church, the same Lord. This school of tolerance, indeed, of mutual acceptance and mutual understanding in the unity of Christ’s Body, is an important part of your years in the seminary.”
– Pope Benedict XVI
The formation program at Theological College is complemented and supported by the rich community life so central to each seminarian’s experience. The nature of living in community invites and demands the seminarian to grow into a true man of communion, for it necessarily requires self-sacrifice and openness to others. Seminarians gather daily for community meals in the refectory, where they are often joined by faculty, staff, resident priests, and guests. The student lounge, Basselin Library, computer center, game room, exercise room, visitor’s lounge, and various outdoor spaces also help foster community life. The friendships formed here extend beyond the doors of Theological College and inform the life of alumni for the decades of ministry that lie ahead.
TC seminarians receive their academic formation at The Catholic University of America. As integral members of the CUA student community, they participate in campus ministry, intramural sports, charitable and other organizations, and myriad presentations and events sponsored by the university. Theological College has its own Student Government Association, composed of four elected officers, individual class representatives, and committee chairs. The committees include Community Life, Prayer and Worship, Social Justice, and Hispanic Affairs.
A representative from the seminary community is also a member of CUA’s School of Theology and Religious Studies Students’ Association, a student committee of the university that provides a forum for student representation and feedback to the School of Theology and Religious Studies. The committee sponsors an annual speaker’s series and other year-round activities that nurture the spiritual, social and intellectual lives of its members.
Seminarian life extends into the wider community through the Pastoral Formation Program. TC seminarians serve in the Archdioceses of Washington and Baltimore and the Diocese of Arlington. This includes hospital, catechetical, prison, and parish ministry, as well as direct service to the poor, disabled, and disadvantaged. Through this program, communities surrounding TC are made aware of seminarian life and come to appreciate the life of service seminarians are called toward. This program facilitates a broad exposure to pastoral experiences and situations that will prepare seminarians for priestly ministries in their dioceses. (Click HERE to learn more about the Pastoral Formation Program.) | <urn:uuid:6519bd09-0959-4920-b2ca-2fe7429f990c> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.theologicalcollege.org/seminarian-life/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571147.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810040253-20220810070253-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.953125 | 593 | 1.5 | 2 |
Fox River Water Trail
The 11-mile Fox River Water Trail provides access to Kenosha County’s largest river and includes four non-motorized watercraft launch sites maintained by the Kenosha County Parks Division.
The Fox River watershed covers 2,658 square miles around the Fox River extending from Colgate, WI, to Ottawa, IL. The river runs 223 miles with over 1.5 million people residing within the watershed.
The Fox River Water Trail has grown in popularity over the last five years and Kenosha County now is joined with the Village of Waterford and the Northeastern Illinois Water Trails to offer this free recreational service to residents. To learn more about safety conditions, trip planning, and maps, go to the Fabulous Fox Water Trail Site. | <urn:uuid:ce0f797e-17d5-46c2-8e22-8e685acc5a8d> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.kenoshacounty.org/1737/Fox-River-Water-Trail | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571147.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810040253-20220810070253-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.925106 | 159 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Artificial intelligence (AI) is likely to increasingly drive improved customer and employee experience after being “slow out the gate” in that area compared to other advantages it is delivering, Gradient Institute Director Catriona Wallace has told the Actuaries Institute summit.
“We will start to see a greater emphasis on AI-driven employee, customer experience, really as a result of the pandemic and the challenge organisations and brands are having with regard to retaining customers and retaining and attracting employees,” she said.
“We will see a lot greater use of AI and machine learning in our workplaces around employee wellbeing and productivity and customer wellbeing and sales and service.”
Plus, a press release from the Australian National University and Gradient Institute, announcing that kids who are happier do better in test results. And, conversely, kids who are unhappy, do worse.
“This research has a far more wide-reaching effect than just NAPLAN tests, it shapes the way education professionals should approach teaching as a whole,” study author Dr Diana Cardenas said. “Our findings show that teaching for test scores isn’t enough. There is great benefit when schools care about the head and the heart of their students. Subjective well-being – how a person perceives their emotions and experiences – is an under-explored area in education.”
Partners with the Gradient Institute.
The NSW government has commissioned a study into the metaverse to understand the opportunities and regulatory risks that shared virtual worlds hold.
The study will be conducted by the Gradient Institute, a Sydney-based research and advocacy institute, with support to be provide by the Department of Customer Service.
The Gradient Institute has previously worked with the department’s digital arm, digital.nsw, to develop the government’s AI ethics policy.
AI platforms are set to become more readily customisable as a result of new, open-source software created with the support of Minderoo Foundation.
That software, dubbed AI Impact Control Panel, will provide companies with a graphic interface to allow them to adjust the technical interface of an AI platform.
It comes on the back of a report by developer Gradient Institute, compiled with Minderoo’s assistance, which aims to provide guidance to businesses in de-risking their reliance on computers to make key decisions.
Parents are being warned their children could be exposed to ‘virtual crimes’ on the metaverse which currently have little to no policing.
The ‘metaverse’ is an entire virtual world, created using artificial intelligence where users create lifelike avatars to interact with and live inside the alternate universe.
A new study has confirmed what many parents would already have thought – happier kids get better test results at school.
Researchers from Australian National University (ANU) studied more than 3,000 students and found that self-reported levels of depression had a negative effect on NAPLAN results. ANU and Gradient Institute performed the work together with Gradient Institute applying its machine learning based causal inference techniques and software tools.
Ever since the computer Hal went rogue in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, people have worried that one day computers would become so smart they would take over the world.
That is yet to happen but the rapid development of artificial intelligence is starting to raise important issues.
The NSW Ombudsman has just issued a report titled The new machinery of government which acknowledges the technology has uses and benefits but warns governments should be more careful in how they apply it. Gradient Institute contributed to the technical aspects of the report.
Ethics is at the heart of the technological arms race the world is officially not participating in. When the values of the West are leveraged against us by autocrats, they become our weakness as well as our strength.
This week the Prime Minister gave a speech as part of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s new Sydney Dialogues series that, while accompanied by less fanfare, was more consequential than the AUKUS submarine deal.
Artificial intelligence (AI) continues to become increasingly widespread and organizations are ever becoming more reliant on AI systems for critical decision-making. With this, there is a need for a framework that will guide them in ensuring that they are able to implement their AI initiatives responsibly.
Recognizing this need, Union Bank of the Philippines (UnionBank) released a report that will act as a guide on how responsible AI can be enforced on the greater industrial level. The contents of the report were based on a collaborative initiative with the Gradient Institute called Project AI Trust, which has enabled the Bank to consider and implement responsible AI practices for its automated systems.
Ethical AI Advisory and Gradient Institute have launched the inaugural Australian Responsible AI Index, sponsored by IAG and Telstra. The index findings, which reveal that less than one in 10 Australia-based organisations have a mature approach to deploying responsible and ethical artificial intelligence (AI), signal the urgent need for Australian organisations to increase investment in responsible AI strategies.
Less than one in 10 organisations in Australia have a mature approach to deploying responsible artificial intelligence (AI), underscoring a need for greater focus on the ethical considerations related to growing use of the technology.
The New South Wales government has named the 11 individuals who will form the NSW Artificial Intelligence Advisory Committee and play a role in how AI is used in the state, including Gradient CEO Bill Simpson-Young.
A new study by researchers from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation’s (CSIRO) Data61, along with the Australian National University and researchers from Germany, has determined that AI can influence human decision-making.
Businesses and governments need to urgently address bias in their artificial intelligence systems and put in place mitigation strategies or stop using the technology entirely, according to Australian Human Rights Commissioner Edward Santow.
The non-profit Gradient Institute and consultancy Ethical AI Advisory have signed an alliance to collaborate on the development and deployment of Artificial Intelligence (AI) that is both ethical and trustworthy.
Monetary Authority of Singapore tasks two teams, comprising banks and artificial intelligence industry players, to develop metrics that ensure the “responsible use of AI” for credit risk scoring and customer marketing.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) is working with banks and technology firms to develop measures to judge customers fairly when artificial intelligence (AI) is used to assess their credit risk.
Three eminent Australian organisations announced on Thursday they will collaborate to create the Gradient Institute, an independent non-profit body, to research and implement the ethical behaviour of artificial intelligence (AI).
Insurance Australia Group (IAG) has today unveiled a new partnership with the CSIRO’s Data61 and University of Sydney to launch a research and advocacy institute concerned with the ethical use of artificial intelligence.
The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation’s (CSIRO) Data61, alongside IAG and the University of Sydney, has created a new artificial intelligence (AI)-focused institute, aimed at exploring the ethics of the emerging technology. | <urn:uuid:2a42ceea-37e8-4765-b5c4-5bcdd24bf969> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://gradientinstitute.org/gradient-in-the-news/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.950364 | 1,452 | 2.03125 | 2 |
View slides (podcast not available)
Speaker: Helene Muller-Landau, PhD, Staff Scientist, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Tropical forests account for a disproportionate share of global forest carbon stocks and of global tree diversity, and their ecosystem services and biodiversity are under threat from global change. Understanding these changing forests is not only a major challenge in fundamental research, but also critical to forest conservation and climate protection efforts.
CTFS – ForestGEO is an international network of 59 long-term forest dynamics research sites. The network totals 1,560 ha of census plots, has accrued >17,000 ha-years of monitoring, encompasses >5.5 million living trees and >10,000 species, spans 25°S – 61°N latitude, and is highly representative of the range of climatic and edaphic conditions experienced by forests globally. Measurements include a regular core census of all trees ≥1 cm diameter and supplementary measurements of tree functional traits, growth and physiology, reproduction, DNA barcodes, arthropod and vertebrate populations, C stocks, soil nutrients, aboveground productivity, ecosystem-atmosphere gas exchange, and microclimate. These data enable detailed studies of forest structure and dynamics and their relationships to natural and anthropogenic drivers.
Recent findings document the low extent of spatial autocorrelation in aboveground biomass at scales of 20-500 m, the scale-dependence of relationships of tree species richness with productivity and biomass, and the high frequency of major changes in abundance of tree species (from analysis of 4000 species), among many others. This talk will present selected past, current, and planned research from the CTFS – ForestGEO network that address forest structure and dynamics.
Helene Muller-Landau is a staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI), where she leads the Forest Carbon Research Initiative for the Center for Tropical Forest Science (CTFS) – ForestGEO network of large forest dynamics plots. She uses a combination of empirical and theoretical approaches to investigate the ecosystem and community ecology of tropical forests. She did her undergraduate degree in Mathematics and Statistics at Swarthmore College, her PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University, and postdoctoral work at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis and at Princeton University before taking a position as assistant professor at the University of Minnesota. In 2008 she moved to her current position at STRI. | <urn:uuid:bc788538-8a4c-4156-a701-015d1637e98c> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.tropicalforests.ox.ac.uk/event/insights-into-tropical-forest-structure-and-dynamics-from-the-ctfs-forestgeo-network-of-forest-dynamics-plots/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.896712 | 492 | 2.4375 | 2 |
A veteran who slept rough around Sheffield for over a year is urging others to get help from the same charity which turned his life around.
Richard Rayner, 51, says that without the work of charity Walking With The Wounded (WWTW) he would “still be homeless, or worse still, in prison.”
The organisation helps ex-servicemen and women reintegrate back into civilian life, an often extremely difficult and complicated task.
Statistics from the Youth Homelessness Databank show that only one in four Sheffield residents were successful in their applications for housing last year, with only a small percentage given ‘homeless’ status.
Despite serving his country for four years in the 13th/18th Royal Hussars, Mr Rayner was left with no support, unemployed, mental health issues and a lack of training and qualifications – and his is just one case in hundreds according to the charity.
Mr Rayner now has a job and a place to live this Christmas because of the care given to him by WWTW.
To thank the charity, he will be one of many beneficiaries taking part in the organisation’s Christmas campaign ‘Walking Home For Christmas’.
Mr Rayner said: “I’m not doing it just to raise money; it’s about awareness more than anything. If I just help one person by doing what I’m doing, then I feel I’ve given a little bit back.
“I’ve taken so much help from them, I need to see if I can help someone myself and that’s my motivation.”
The campaign challenges people to do a sponsored walk of any distance to any destination, raising money and awareness for destitute veterans.
Andrew Cook, Director of Fundraising at WWTW, explained that the holidays can often be the hardest time of year for these people.
“We all think of Christmas resonating very much as a family time of year when we get together with love ones but we’re dealing with individuals who haven’t spent Christmas with their children for years.
“They’re socially isolated at a time of year when we’re going to sit down at a table on Christmas day enjoying the company of our family and they’re going to be elsewhere, disenfranchised from their own family.”
People wanting to participate in the campaign can get a free fundraising toolkit from the charity’s website. | <urn:uuid:fe2638fd-fd30-4913-8230-4a9a3d80eff2> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.shefnews.co.uk/2017/10/20/swallow-your-pride-veterans-message-to-struggling-ex-forces-this-christmas/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.954613 | 532 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) today announced a partnership with the Houston Independent School District (ISD), the largest school district in the state of Texas and the seventh largest in the country to provide teachers and administrators with data-driven measures of student achievement.
Announced today at the Texas Assessment Conference in Austin, Houston ISD will adopthttp://www.schoolcio.com/Default.aspx?tabid=111&ctl=UserArticleManage&mid=474 HMH’s Iowa Assessments™; Logramos®3rd Edition, an assessment of achievement in Spanish; and the Cognitive Abilities Test™ (CogAT®) – a decision that will impact more than 210,000 students in 282 schools throughout the district.
HMH’s solution will continue to enable Houston ISD to assess student achievement relative to district, state, and national levels, while also equipping teachers and administrators with information to make decisions regarding gifted status and student grade placement.
“Through this partnership, Houston ISD will have access to assessments that provide a clear and accurate portrait of student achievement, allowing educators to more effectively identify areas of strength and weakness, and create personalized learning pathways to meet those needs,” said Jim Nicholson, President, HMH–Riverside. “Our plan for the school district is built upon comprehensive training and support that will help ensure that our assessments bring value to teachers and administrators within the district.”
The Iowa Assessments, the result of a longstanding partnership between HMH–Riverside and the University of Iowa, monitors growth through a continuous research-based vertical scale. Its newest Forms E and F measure achievement in core academic areas important for success at the college and university level. It also provides the opportunity to evaluate performance against next-generation academic standards and track college and career readiness.
As the newest group-administered assessment of achievement in Spanish, Logramos 3rd Edition measures five subject areas—Reading, Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies. With a Hispanic student population topping 60 percent in the district, Logramos supports HISD’s educational goals for English Language Learners (ELLs).
CogAT, the assessment to measure students’ cognitive abilities and learning styles, offers a new edition that is accessible for ELL students. New features include the use of pictures and figures rather than words and phrases that may be unfamiliar to non-native speakers, providing an equitable testing experience for all students. | <urn:uuid:d3b2c59c-3945-43de-a173-c13b93dbf9ee> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.techlearning.com/news/texas-largest-school-district-adopts-assessment-suite | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571147.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810040253-20220810070253-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.922014 | 518 | 1.90625 | 2 |
Amos talks to missionary aviation pilot, Jerry Hurd. AIM Air is a Christian missionary aviation team operating six aircraft from three bases in east and central Africa.
Unreached People: Rendille
The Rendille live in the Kaisut Desert east of Lake Turkana, northern Kenya as semi-nomadic pastoralists. There are two distinctive groups: the northern Rendille, who herd camels, and the southern Rendille who herd cattle and are related to the Samburu with whom they intermarry. They live in ‘manyattas’ or homesteads of 70-100 houses, dress in bright colours and wear beads. The men undergo various rites of passage to bring them into adulthood; young girls are often spoken for at an early age and marry very young.
Despite being the biggest county in Kenya, Marsabit County currently has no Bible training facilities. The local church has requested that someone come and set up a Bible training college, which will serve the many different people groups in the area. | <urn:uuid:2a091948-1b95-4fc7-8146-b7c31f28e169> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://eu.aimint.org/unreached_people/rendille/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.961415 | 212 | 1.945313 | 2 |
No Botanic Gardens Walk with Tom Muller this month.
Sunday Dec 6th: Christmas Social at Val d’Or: Our venue again this year is Bill Clarke’s property, Val d’Or; thanks go to Bill for agreeing to host us.
9.30am to 10.15am Tea
10.15am Scavenger Hunt briefing
10.30am to 11.30am Team Tree Scavenger Hunt
11.30am to 11.45am Scavenger Hunt checking
12.00 noon to 1.00pm General Knowledge Team Quiz
1.00pm Lunch & Social
Please bring some Christmas fare to share for tea and bring your own lunch and a wine glass. The Society will provide some wine for those attending. Please bring any other drinks you may like, together with appropriate glasses. Chairs and tables will be provided.
No PLANTED TREES OF HARARE for this month, hopefully we will have one for January. – Ed.
THE FIGS WITH TOM Sunday, November 15, 2015
This month the third Sunday outing was to the Botanic Garden with Tom to look at the Figs in the genus Ficus, (the classical Latin name for a fig) in the family Moraceae. This is one of the occasions when we really did a lot of walking, the fig trees are well spread out in the Garden and Tom had spent a couple of hours the previous day tracking them down. Thank you Tom it was great to cover so much ground and see so many species. The group did make double figures so Tom was happy and despite the heat, nobody dropped by the wayside.
The first one on the path to the restaurant and Education Centre was a challenge to us but Tom had to admit it was not indigenous to Zimbabwe being Ficus trichopoda, swamp fig, and it was amazing to see it here and doing very well. This is a tree that grows in swamps with horizontal branches with aerial roots, which this had but which usually go down into the water and become props for the spreading branches. At one time in South Africa it was Ficus hippopotami because of where it was growing, but was found to be the same as F. trichopoda which was an earlier name.
The next one as the path turned the corner was Ficus vallis-choudae, Haroni Fig, because that is the only place it occurs in southern Africa. The name comes from the Chouda Valley in Ethiopia where it was first collected. The figs are larger than Ficus sur and were lying underneath the tree.
And then we digressed to look at Burttdavya nyassica, a Rubiaceae species, a magnificent tree with big leaves and hairy fruiting heads that Tom had planted so it could be enjoyed from the restaurant. This grows in Mozambique and is a genus with only one species confined to eastern Africa.
The next stop was at that wonderful Sycomore Fig which has featured previously in a group photo. There was green fruit in little branched clusters along the main branches showing this to be subsp. sycomorus, different from the other subspecies, subsp. gnaphalocarpa which has figs that are borne singly in the axils of the leaves or leaf-scars.
Next to it were a couple of Ficus bussei, Zambezi Figs, wider than tall and well known at Mana Pools. The fruits were over and lying on the ground. The base of the leaves is deeply lobed with the lobes overlapping so that they almost look peltate with the petiole coming out of the back of the leaf.
Usually a spectacular so-called strangler, Ficus chirindensis, the Chirinda or fairytale fig, has been planted in the ground in the Botanic Garden and so is solid all the way up. Tom told us that when they start life in the fork of a tall tree they send their roots down to the ground and eventually grow so vigorously that they completely shade out the host tree and it dies. During our recent trip to Chirinda Forest we saw several and some of us climbed into the hollow trunk of the one illustrated.
The leaves of Ficus glumosa were too high up for us to be able to see that it was the Hairy Rock Fig with roundish leaves and found on many of the rocky kopjes around Harare. This was fairly close to another rocky kopje species, Ficus natalensis subsp. graniticola, Granite-boulder Fig with leaves flattened or truncate at the apex and the midrib dividing and not quite reaching the end.
Across the lawn were two Ficus ingens, red-leaved rock figs, one in full green leaf and one with little pinkish fruit and the new red leaves. Behind the Herbarium were a couple of Ficus sansibarica, that Tom thought had died. Another bonus is that they too were in fruit. This tree is cauliflorous , bearing the fruit right on the branches on unbranched spurs. When not covered by fruit these appear as little knobs hence the common name Knobbly Fig.
On the way to Ficus rokko we ,or at least I, was side-tracked by Acacia goetzei subsp. microphylla in flower. This is something I don’t think I have ever seen in the wild let alone seen it in flower. Ficus rokko or Rokko Fig is another fig that sends down prolific aerial roots resulting in an expanding girth. The last time I had it measured it took 14 children with arms outstretched to go round it. One of them called it a magic tree.
Next was Ficus scassellatii, Crowned-fruit Fig, one I don’t know at all and am now delighted to know there is one in the Botanic Garden. It has fruit with a little nipple on top but we didn’t see any. This was just opposite a huge Draceana mannii, Small-leaved Dragontree. We found what Tom thought might be Ficus tremula but the red on the midrib on the undersurface was puzzling.
Finally just outside the Education Centre we looked at Ficus bubu, which John Burrows, the Fig-book man, calls the Sulphur-bark Fig and that is a very good name for it as it has a very smooth pale sulphur-green to creamy yellow bark. In Zimbabwe this occurs only in the Haroni-Makurupini forest. This is usually an epiphyte or strangler and people who have been to Catapu will remember that spectacular stranger next to the road in the Inhamitanga Forest.
-Meg Coates Palgrave
OUTING TO NEW YEAR’S GIFT, CHIPINGE THURSDAY 5th NOVEMBER 2015
Plans having failed to go into Mozambique and explore the Ndzou Eco-camp in the Moribane Forest Reserve, with a view to exploring a potential destination for a Tree Society expedition, we – Graham, Bilal and myself – decided to travel to New Year’s Gift the day before the rest of the group arrived. What a good move that was!
After a very easy and uneventful journey – toasted cheese and tomato sandwiches at Halfway House, buying mangoes, bananas and pineapples for the camp at Nyanyadzi, a paddle in the hot water at Hot Springs, visiting Birchenough Bridge over the beautiful Save River – we arrived mid-afternoon at the very green and luscious looking Tanganda Tea Estate’s New Year’s Gift Training School, where we received a warm welcome from Tonderai Chitungo and Francis Chingono and their staff. All that was good news. Then came the bad.
There had been no ZESA for a week and consequently every storage tank was bone dry and there was not a drop of water out of any tap! There was also some confusion over the accommodation. However, with the help of the staff, there were soon buckets of water in the rooms for flushing loos and washing hands. A visit to Chipinge the next morning procured more buckets, resulting in each room having two buckets of water. Beds were moved around and re-arranged to fit our needs. While the camp staff were making beds and filling buckets, we took the opportunity to visit Chipinge and the rest of the Tanganda Tea Estates. It was a most interesting trip, both to see the Estates in operation, tea, macadamia nuts, avocados and coffee grown in profusion and also to see the complete devastation of “taken over” estates and burnt out areas. We got back in time to welcome the rest of the party. The group, as they arrived, took all the problems in true style and coped. An erratic ZESA supply came back on Friday night, much to everyone’s delight but alas – it blew the water pump!!! But by lunchtime next day it was fixed and we all had water out of the taps.
After an enjoyable evening meal Tony took those of us interested to look at stars – a great interlude – his “pointer” reached all the way to Heaven.
There were two botanising walks in the vicinity of the camp on Saturday, one into the dry woodland to the west of the camp and in the afternoon we had a very pleasant walk along the Tanganda River. There will be a separate write up on these walks. We were more than delighted to welcome Doug and Tempe van der Ruit from Chimanimani on the afternoon walk. They had come to be with us on our visit to Chirinda Forest the next day. We were joined for dinner that night by Sue and Jamie Otterson and their little granddaughter, as well as Doug and Tempe – another happy evening.
Early breakfast and we set off for Chipinge where we met up with Dave and Irene Meikle and Peter and Marianne Buttress and proceeded onto to Chirinda. The forest has lost none of the magic I remembered from a childhood visit and a visit in the 1990s with my husband Desmond. Not for me to try to find the right words to describe it all, there will be a write up for that day too. We had a picnic lunch in the forest and then set off to the campsite on the other side of the road which looked to be in very good nick and the botanising was wonderful. If the road had not been so bad this would have been the destination for the last day, I feel sure. It really needs another visit and more time.
Monday – all the group were a little jaded after the very long, hot day on Sunday. There was a local botanising excursion around the camp and in the afternoon the group was entertained to tea and botanising in the Otterson’s garden. While this was going on a visit to the local road side market up the hill to procure fresh fruit for lunch and the next day’s breakfast was profitable.
After breakfast on Tuesday we all packed up and headed for home – a long drive and it was very hot, however we had another paddle in the hot springs and more mandatory cheese and tomato sandwiches at Halfway House and that broke the journey home.
It was a good experience all round, I hope. I certainly found it so. I would also like to say how very grateful I am to the group for all their support and understanding on all the issues they put up with – ZESA, no water, monotonous breakfasts etc !!
SATURDAY, 7 NOVEMBER 2015
The first full day of our Chipinge trip and we decided to have a ‘local’ day and explore the area around the New Year’s Gift estate.
In the morning we set off on foot from the Training Centre. The altitude was around the 800m mark, not particularly low, but low by Harare standards, so it seemed a hot walk. The season has been very dry so far (are we in for a drought as is predicted?), so there was little herbaceous flora. However, the trees were bursting into flower and leaf.
Within the Training Centre compound we came across a flowering Xeroderris stuhlmannii (Wing Pod) bearing white pea flowers. A few old fruits were seen and these were flat surrounding a central seed with the fruit margins bearing a prominent winged rim.
Further on, we came into more natural woodland. Here were Acacia nilotica (the Scented Thorn), Phyllanthus reticulatus (the Potato Bush), Commiphora mollis (Velvet-leaved Corkwood) and Philenoptera violacea (the Rain Tree).
Although more usually a species with prostrate stems, we came across Tylosema fassoglensis, the Creeping Bauhinia, ascending into a tree with its clusters of yellow flowers. On the subject of bauhinias, in the area were flowering plants of the beautiful Bauhinia galpinii, (the Red Bauhinia or Pride of the Cape) already in flower.
Common in the woodland was Maerua juncea, a scrambling or climbing species; in this case it was the subsp. crustata which we saw. Subsp. crustata has rough fruits whereas the more common subsp. juncea has completely smooth ones. The very young flowers and leaves posed quite a challenge even for well-known species as we were not familiar with the trees in that state. On the positive side, it enabled us to get some new photographs for the Zimbabwe Flora website.
A frequent tree was the Mane-pod, Dalbergiella nyasae and we were fortunate enough to find some pods with their mane-like margin. The afternoon was spent in the very different shady environment of the riverine forest alongside the Tanganda River. This was slightly lower altitude than the morning walk at 795m.
Here were frequent specimens of Trichilia emetica (the Natal Mahogany or Banket Mahogany). These bear large glossy imparipinnate leaves and have more or less spherical fruit with a tapering base (or stipe). The fruit are the easiest way to separate T. emetica from the similar Forest Natal Mahogany, T. dregeana, the fruit of which do not have the distinctive stipe.
Another characteristic tree of lowveld rivers seen was Breonadia salicina, a species in the Rubiaceae (the Coffee family) which has whorled leaves and inflorescences which are spherical in shape. Kigelia africana (the Sausage tree) and Afzelia quanzensis (Pod Mahogany) were also present.
Another medium-low altitude species seen was Annona senegalensis, the Wild custard-apple. The prickly climbing species, Smilax anceps, was found in the forest shade. Common throughout was a non-native Albizia, which had been identified on previous trips as Albizia procera. Specimens were taken and it is intended to try and confirm this name.
A number of specimens were collected on this day which are yet to be identified. Specifically, three species of the Loranthus family were found which may be of interest.
I would like to thank Tom and Meg for the interesting discussions in the field. A special thanks to Mary L., who organised the outing.
TO BE CONTINUED….
Mary L. has been valiantly scanning and now retyping the old Tree Life editions so that we have digital copies for our records. A real labour of love Mary! She came across this interesting article.
Tree Life No 98, April 1988
LUCKY BEANS: NOW USED IN MODERN MEDICINE
Erythrina lysistemon (formerly E. caffra). Photo Bart Wursten, Flora of Zimbabwe
Coastal Coral Trees (Erythrina caffra) have been the focus of scientific and industrial research for the past three years in Cape Town, Pretoria and the Eastern Cape. Members of the Atalaya Branch were drawn into a massive effort to collect the “Lucky Bean” seeds of this species of tree and this year achieved great success in proving that a crop of many tons is available for the picking.
It was important for the South African Inventions Development Corporation (SAIDCOR), an off-shoot of the CSIR, to know this because it had commissioned a Cape Town pharmaceutical manufacturer to produce on an industrial scale the newly discovered compound ETA (Erythrina protease inhibitor). This is an essential factor in isolating a new drug with remarkable properties for the instant treatment of coronary thrombosis and stroke.
The story begins with a visit by Dr Frans Joubert of Pretoria to Professor Eugene Dowdle, head of the Department of Clinical Immunology, Cape Town University, four years previously. Dr. Doodle, his staff and senior students, were trying to find a better way to isolate the experimental anti-clotting drug TPA (tripsin plasminogen activator) that was proving difficult and expensive to produce and not completely satisfactory anyway. The immediate project was to find a bean protein that would perform better than soya been protein, then being used for the experiments.
On that important visit to Cape Town, Dr. Joubert, a CSIR protein scientist from Pretoria, pulled out of his pocket a small quantity of Erythrina seeds and gave them to Professor Dowdle, suggesting that they be tried. Eureka! The Coral Tree protein worked marvellously. It made the isolation of TPA a more direct process yet one that was more economical. Moreover the tPA thus produced had the remarkable property of “homing in” immediately on the clot that caused an arterial blockage, whereas existing anti-clotting drugs could spend vital time searching the vascular system of a dying patient for the clot. In addition tPA produced no side-effect haemorrhages which were a risk involved in the use of earlier anti clotting drugs.
The discovery created an immediate demand for a large quantity of Coral Tree seeds and Professor Dowdle made an appeal in a National Sunday paper for members of the public to collect and send him the red-and-black “Lucky Beans”. No particular species was mentioned. However, the response was disappointing.
Months later in 1985, SAIDCOR directed a second appeal specifically to the Eastern
Cape, home of Erythrina caffra. It decided to concentrate on the orange-flowering Coastal Coral Tree in order to remove a variable from the experimental studies.
SAIDCOR appointed Mr Glen Harvey, retired scientific adviser for South Africa in the Shah’s Iran, to organise and co-ordinate the collection of the seeds in Port Alfred, Port Elizabeth, Grahamstown, Alexandria, East London and the surrounding areas.
In looking for a co-ordinator for Port Elizabeth, Mr Harvey was referred to us, a committee member of the Atalaya Branch of the Dendrological Society. As a retired journalist and writer of a weekly column for naturalists and gardeners in the Eastern Province Herald, I was able to mount a fairly intensive publicity campaign.
That year the mass of beans collected (for which SAIDCOR now paid 50c a kilogram) rose to more than a ton. In 1986 other committee members of Atalya also were running depots for seed collectors at their homes in Port Elizabeth. The total collecting in Port Elizabeth was about a ton and in the Herald’s complete circulation area about three tons. By now most of the actual collectors were rural Africans, many of them unemployed, so the project acquired a socio- economic significance.
In 1987 a halt was called when the project had escalated to a total of 4613 kg, most of it collected in Grahamstown, Alexandria; Port Alfred and Port Elizabeth from the thousands of Erythrina caffra trees on sidewalks and in gardens.
Dr Ore Safriel, project manager for SAIDCOR, regards the seeds as a national resource of great potential value. She says there is world medical interest in EIA, as it offers human control over the dissolving of clots. The drug is now going through the process of testing for human use by the international food and drug administration.
As the trees from which seed was harvested in this project have nearly all been planted, seed collection had no detrimental environmental impact.
Bob Nixon Dendroon July 1987
TONY ALEGRIA CHAIRMAN | <urn:uuid:5ad3034c-68d9-4c47-9d9f-6ffa6e822a58> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://treesociety.org.zw/tree-life/424/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570651.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20220807150925-20220807180925-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.97085 | 4,383 | 1.578125 | 2 |
By John Richardson
THE WORLD was very different in 2003 when SARS struck. Back then, China accounted for just 4% of the global economy but last year this had risen to 17%.
The US was also the biggest source of global economic growth 17 years ago. China has since overtaken the US to become the main source of global growth, with its contribution to the expansion to world’s economy now nearly three times that of the US.
It is thus obvious that the $33bn cost to the global economy of the SARS outbreak will be many times exceeded by the effects of the coronavirus outbreak, even assuming that this latest global health scare is quickly brought under control.
But it will not just be the headline cost of $33bn that will many times exceeded. More importantly, the effects of the economic loss will be much more keenly felt because China is a far more important source of total global economic growth than it was in 2003.
What applies to macroeconomics also applies to petrochemicals and polymers as the outputs of our industry are the raw materials for so many manufacturing chains.
When financial analysts and economists talk about the rise of Chinese consumption, they usually only refer to oil, copper and other well-understood commodities (for example, in 2002, China accounted for some 18% of global consumption rising to 53% in 2019, according to BCA Research).
But just as good if not better a gauge of the potential impact of the coronavirus crisis are ICIS data on China’s role in driving global polymers consumption.
Positives and negatives for polymers demand
The basket of polymers I have chosen for the above chart go into everything from cheap disposable single-use plastics, a big source of demand for polyethylene, all the way up the retail cost chain to resins such as polypropylene (PP), polycarbonate (PC) and nylon that go into expensive consumer durables such as autos and electronics.
Lumping them all together in this way is only a first level of analysis in order to indicate total exposure of the global petrochemicals industry to China.
(Watch this space. Later blog posts will provide updated 2020 growth forecasts for specific polymers).
We can seek from this chart is that China is expected to account for 43% of total global consumption of all these commodities in 2020, up from just 22% in 2003.
It is also worth noting that in 2003 over the previous year, China accounted for 48% of the total global growth in all these polymers. In 2020 compared with 2019, we forecast this will have increased to 54%.
It is not necessarily the case that all the resins will see weaker growth than we had expected in 2020. Some might even benefit from greater demand for face masks and other medical equipment.
And as The Economist points out, “The [Chinese] economy is running on home delivery of food and goods” because of travel bans on some 56m people.
This will support PE and expandable polystyrene packaging demand for home deliveries, that is until the government has the time and space to implement major new restrictions on single-use plastics.
But there are negatives for the consumption of polymers in autos as Wuhan, which is the epicentre of the outbreak, is a major hub for automotive production.
The extension of the Lunar New Year Holidays to 9 February in the key manufacturing hubs of Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Chongqing will also weaken demand for polymers in general that go into finished goods.
The question on the exam paper then becomes whether or not this will only amount to a huge seasonal distortion in polymers demand.
Could it be that every tonne of lost consumption in Q1 is regained in the second quarter as the economy kicks back into gear, thanks no doubt to government economic stimulus?
This can only happen if the virus is quickly brought under control. Right, now, of course, nobody has a clue about whether this is achievable.
As far as the latest overall GDP growth projections are concerned, several economists seem to believe that the lost growth momentum from the coronavirus outbreak cannot be entirely recovered.
For example, Oxford Economics is now forecasting Chinese GDP growth at 5.6% for the full-year 2020 versus its earlier prediction of 6%. It sees global growth at just 2.3% in 2020, which would be the lowest rate of increase since the Global Financial Crisis.
The broader economic effects in more detail
US GDP growth slowed to 2.3% in 2019, the slowest expansion in three years. The outbreak could drag growth lower as sales of goods and services in China take a hit.
Starbucks has closed nearly half of its outlets in China, Disney and Tesla have suspended operations and US airlines have stopped flights to China.
President Trump will very likely have to forget one of his big Phase One trade deal “victories” – China’s pledge to buy $200bn worth of US commodities, finished goods and services over the next two years compared with the level of its purchases in 2017.
This was a very difficult target from the outset given China’s current level of purchases in commodities such as nuts. China would have to this year raise its purchases of a US nuts to a value of no less than $2.5.bn from its previous record-high of $390m in 2012 in order to meet the overall target.
The $200bn target now seems impossible because of the virus-related slowdown in the Chinese economy.
Mr Trump might find himself under pressure from US farmers and manufacturers as he hits the re-election trail. How might he react? Consider the possibility of him losing his famous temper and the trade war accelerating again.
At the very least, there will be no major support to farm and manufacturing incomes, and thus US GDP, from Chinese commodities purchases in 2020.
Other commodity exporters such as Australia and Brazil will likely be badly affected, with countries such as South Korea and Vietnam also damaged through disruptions in Chinese-dominated manufacturing supply chains. Also expect countries such as Thailand to suffer from a big drop in Chinese tourism.
This just scratches this surface. There are many more ramifications to consider including the disruption to petrochemicals supply chains as a result of Chinese petrochemical plant shutdowns.
One example is in polyethylene terephthalate, where buyers of Chinese resins have had to seek alternative suppliers in Southeast and the Middle East.
I will keep you up to date on events as best I can, as this week I am travelling in Saudi Arabia. | <urn:uuid:3e6594ae-6551-44be-bf23-e9f5da0e3499> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.icis.com/asian-chemical-connections/2020/02/why-coronavirus-will-be-a-much-bigger-deal-for-petrochemicals-than-sars/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.961106 | 1,364 | 2.203125 | 2 |
‘The year the mortgage market moved’, a whitepaper from Moneyfacts, found this was an uptick of £81 since March last year.
This was a higher than normal increase, as average fees fell by £22 to £565 in March 2018 on an annual basis, then by £2 in March 2019 to £563. By March 2020, the average mortgage fee stood at £574.
Variable mortgage fees have increased by £97 since March 2020, while fixed fees have risen by an average of £76.
Moneyfacts found that while fees for variable rate products were still rising, fixed rate product fees had been relatively flat since the end of last year.
Lenders continued to prepare for the worst case scenario, the report found, as evidence showed pricing had been influenced by the risk of default.
This was displayed by the lack of change in rates for mortgages with a loan to value (LTV) of 60 per cent or higher from January 2019 to March 2020. This reflected the stable market conditions, Moneyfacts said.
By April last year, a month into the pandemic, there was sharp rise in the rate differential at 90 and 95 per cent LTV.
Throughout 2020, rate differentials at 75 and 85 per cent LTV was also volatile as lenders worked out where to attribute risk. This coincided with national lockdowns, indicating uncertainty among lenders at the time.
There was another rise in rates across all tiers during spring, when the mortgage guarantee scheme was launched.
However, this was temporary and differentials eventually settled “as providers learned from the experiences of the early stages of the pandemic and were better able to quantify the likelihood of default into a clearer pricing strategy”.
Standard variable rates (SVRs) declined over the course of the pandemic along with the record-low Bank of England base rate.
Average SVRs dropped from 4.90 per cent at the beginning of March 2020 to 4.71 per cent by the start of April and 4.44 per cent by the beginning of August.
By December, average SVRs fell to their current and lowest-ever rate of 4.41 per cent, a 0.49 per cent decrease on pre-pandemic levels.
First-time buyers and mortgage availability
High LTV availability has not returned to pre-pandemic levels despite a sixfold increase in first-time buyer demand, Moneyfacts said.
The whitepaper showed that at the end of May 2021, there were 38 per cent fewer 90 per cent LTV mortgages, and 53 per cent fewer at 95 per cent LTV compared to February last year.
Despite this, 90 per cent LTV mortgages have recovered faster than their 95 per cent counterparts.
Mortgages at 90 per cent LTV fell until October 2020, with a 93 per cent reduction compared to March 2020. By May 2021, product numbers were down 63 per cent.
However, a year on from the pandemic, 95 per cent LTV mortgages are only at two per cent of their pre-Covid level.
The increase of five products at 95 per cent LTV in April this year to 122 by May was driven by the mortgage guarantee scheme. Over 60 mortgages remain under the scheme.
The stamp duty holiday spurred increased demand for first-time buyer mortgages.
When the initiative was announced in July last year, first-time buyer searches increased by 6.7 times compared to February 2020.
Remortgage demand surged after the announcement of the lockdown in March last year, with searches doubling on February.
Following this, demand for remortgages declined steadily until July 2020 before stabilising then falling again in December. Searches have not returned to levels seen in March 2020 since.
The whitepaper also found switching borrowers at low LTV tiers were able to make savings. With the introduction of sub-one per cent products at 60 per cent LTV this year, borrowers within this band could benefit from an average rate saving of 0.41 per cent as of April.
Michelle Monck, head of digital at Moneyfacts.co.uk, said: “Our latest white paper, ‘The year the mortgage market moved’, analyses the impact that national lockdowns and government intervention have had on the mortgage market during the past 18 months. Our analysis identifies the difference in motivations and response to the series of national lockdowns between borrowers and lenders. Borrowers have been fast to react to the changing situation during the series of national lockdowns.
“Lenders, as should be expected, have been more cautious.”
She added: “While the effects of unwinding the furlough scheme and the results of the removal of Coronavirus restrictions in the UK are not known, lenders will continue to act with caution.
“This shows lenders pricing in for potential default risk and this strategy of cautiousness is also manifesting itself right now as lenders offer the lowest risk borrowers at 60 per cent LTV record-breaking fixed rates of less than one per cent.” | <urn:uuid:b151154a-cd42-4be9-950e-ef75bdb5ee7d> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.mortgagesolutions.co.uk/news/2021/07/30/mortgage-fees-on-the-rise-moneyfacts/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.974342 | 1,049 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Viewpoint: The Haven puts out call to action
This year through October, the Haven of Rest, which is Battle Creek’s only emergency homeless shelter, has served over 2,000 unique individuals of our community, which has meant full shelters nearly every night. Many of our guests are children; many of our clients are veterans. All of them come to us seeking hope.
Besides offering the beacon of hope, we also feed the homeless every single day of the year. So far this year we have served over 65,000 meals – most of them hot, and all of them nutritious. No one ever leaves the Haven hungry, and we’re proud of that.
The problem of homelessness has many roots; in our experience, a person’s homelessness is often just the SYMPTOM of a problem, rather than the problem itself. The Haven’s approach is two-fold: first, we solve the immediate crisis of homelessness (i.e., address the symptoms that are often critical) by providing food and shelter, and; second, we work with the person to address the underlying causal factors (i.e., the root problems) of their homelessness crisis.
These root problems often take the form of very substantial issues like substance abuse, mental health challenges, physical disabilities, or a combination of these things. The Haven provides excellent treatment and substance abuse recovery support within our Men’s and Women’s Life Recovery Programs, two of the most impactful ministries that exist in this community. These Life Recovery Programs save dozens of adult lives each year that would otherwise end in the tragedy of overdose and death. Through these programs, we also provide services for mental health and advocate for additional services at more in-depth providers when it is necessary.
Specifically addressing the needs of the children of homeless families, the Haven actively maintains the Inasmuch House, a 30- to 60-day emergency shelter for homeless women, children and families. Through this shelter, the Haven also maintains a comprehensive afterschool program for children of homeless families. This educational support goes on for up to nine months (a full school year) after these kids leave our shelter. That support is very important to helping the children we serve achieve academically.
Overall, our goals are to see 80% of the single people (those not in families) moving through our shelters in less than 30 days, and 90% moving through in 60 days.
For families and parents with children, we have a goal of moving 70% of our guests through our shelters in less than 30 days, and 90% in 60 days. To date, we have been able to achieve these measurable goals, and we track amounts of time that people spend in our shelters on a daily basis through software required by the State of Michigan’s homeless information tracking system.
Simply put, the Haven of Rest is one of the most impactful agencies in this community, creating positive change, saving lives, and serving many of our area’s most vulnerable people.
You may recall that in August of 2017, the Haven was in a fiscal crisis and was assisted through this crisis by the support of the Battle Creek Community Foundation, in the form of a $50,000 loan and other operational support. I am happy to report that as of October 2018 this loan has been completely repaid, and we continue to work to restructure our balance sheet to eliminate our debt balances. We cannot put into words the gratitude we feel to the Battle Creek Community Foundation for their support during that difficult time.
Through this process we were also assisted by the accounting firm Plante, Moran, which was an additional support that the BC Community Foundation offered us, and whose accountants came on-site at the Haven and very thoroughly analyzed our books and helped us navigate through the internal operational issues that existed. In the review that was performed, the expert accountants from Plante, Moran looked at every single account the Haven had, and in each one, they reconciled every penny.
Also through this process, several positive changes were made to operations within the Haven. This year, the Haven continued the work, and completed several years’ worth of financial audits through our accounting partners at Yeo & Yeo. Results from fiscal years of 2016, 2017 and 2018 have been completed, presented and approved by the accountants, and by the Haven’s board of Directors. The Haven also presented an in-depth, long-term “Financial Sustainability Plan” to a local group of funders, and we continue to follow this strategic document to its mid-2020 goals for the organization.
At this time of year the Haven, its ministries, and the thousands of people we serve in our region, need our community to step forward with strong financial support and sacrificial giving to our organization to allow us to continue these programs. In light of all we do, will you please consider a strong financial donation to the Haven of Rest to support these critical programs? We do indeed need your help and support to continue this work.
You can send your donation to the Haven directly at 11 Green St., Battle Creek, MI, 49014, or you can go on-line to the Haven’s website at www.thehavenbc.org to complete your gift so that these important programs can continue in our community. Thank you for answering this call to action, God Bless you, and God Bless the Haven of Rest.
Daniel Jones is executive director of the Haven of Rest. | <urn:uuid:a1e84e07-e2c4-485b-95de-be8207138a6a> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.battlecreekenquirer.com/story/opinion/columnists/2018/11/20/viewpoint-haven-puts-out-call-action/2073448002/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571147.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810040253-20220810070253-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.967132 | 1,123 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Tiêu đề video: Kanō Jigorō: Japan’s “Father of Judo”s 161st Birthday
Độ dài: 00:02:41, Ngày đăng: 2021-10-28 13:49:55
Tác giả: FOOTPRINTS
Link gốc: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juVZw972Qmo
Google Doodle, celebrates Professor Kanō Jigorō, Japan’s “Father of Judo”, with a doodle on his 161st birthday.
The name Judo means “the gentle way”, and the sport is built on principles, such as, justice, courtesy, safety, and modesty. Kanō saw the martial art as a way to bring people together, even while throwing opponents to the mat.
Kanō Jigorō was born on 28, October, 1860, in Mikage (now part of Kobe). Kanō moved to Tokyo with his father at age 11. Though he was known as a child prodigy in school, he often faced adversity.
To build strength, he became determined to study the martial art of Jujutsu. During his time as a student at Tokyo University, he finally found someone who would teach him, Jujutsu master and former samurai, Fukuda Hachinosuke.
Judo was first born during a Jujutsu sparring match, when Kanō incorporated a western wrestling move, to bring his much larger opponent to the mat.
By removing the most dangerous techniques used in Jujutsu, he created “Judo,” a safe and cooperative sport based on Kanō’s personal philosophy of Seiryoku-Zenyo (maximum efficient use of energy), and Jita-Kyoei (mutual prosperity of self and others).
Kanō became the first Asian member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), in 1909, and in 1960, the IOC approved Judo as an official Olympic sport.
Happy birthday, Kanō Jigorō!
Các bạn đang theo dõi chuyên mục Giải Trí
Web site: https://hanoiopentourism.com
Nội dung được tổng hợp từ internet. Vui lòng để lại bình luận nếu muốn đóng góp/ý kiến về nội dung bài viết. | <urn:uuid:5c4a48bb-a7cc-4371-9475-118d649f393d> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://hanoiopentourism.com/2021/11/kano-jigoro-japans-father-of-judos-161st-birthday.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571147.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810040253-20220810070253-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.955134 | 606 | 2.328125 | 2 |
Montana’s unemployment rate steady at 4.2 percent in June
HELENA - Montana’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate continues to hold steady at 4.2 percent in June while the national unemployment rate increased 0.2 percentage points to 4.9 percent.
June is the fifth consecutive month that Montana’s unemployment rate has been 4.2 percent.
Labor Commissioner Pam Bucy says Montana’s continued low unemployment rate suggests job opportunities and wage growth for Montana workers.
The Consumer Price Index rose by 0.2 percent in June. Food prices declined slightly while energy prices increased by 1.3 percent, led by an increase in gasoline prices. | <urn:uuid:4a355da1-381e-4f42-94cb-7e11adb0291b> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.greatfallstribune.com/story/news/local/2016/07/22/montanas-unemployment-rate-steady-percent-june/87449070/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571147.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810040253-20220810070253-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.927236 | 139 | 1.523438 | 2 |
HVAC systems enable you to enjoy a relaxed, healthy environment while helping regulate the atmosphere and make you comfortable. The filters will help remove dust particles, impurities, and pathogens to ensure fresh air. However, buying an air filter can be very challenging. You need to research and know the type of air filter you want and the design. If you buy for the first time, you should continue reading this article. This article explores essential things you should consider when buying an air filter.
The Size of the Air Filter
Your air filter size matters a lot when buying to replace or buying it for the first time. Most filters have their sizes labeled on their surface, while the measurement is rounded up on some. If your house requires a 16x25x1 air filter and you aren’t sure about the measurement, consult an HVAC expert to help you. You can also use a tape measure to get the width, length, and height of the air purifier you need. However, to enjoy your air filter to the maximum, ensure you choose the correct size to ensure it works efficiently.
The Type of Air Filter
The market contains different types of filters. Some filters include carbon filters, high-efficiency particulate air, electronic filters, and electrostatic filters. To avoid confusion, you need to know the different models and consult an expert to help you analyze and get the best air filter to meet your needs. When looking for a filter, don’t just go for the cheapest. Understand the quality and weigh it with the need you want.
Suppose you or your loved one have asthma or other allergies. In that case, you can consider buying the high-efficiency particulate air or the electrostatic filter, best suited to refine the air ultimately by removing even the microscopic allergens. If you are looking for an affordable air filter, you can consider the flat-panel filter. Also, you can consider using carbon filters if your interiors are poorly ventilated.
The Quality of Air
The quality of air differs from one person to another. Some factors can affect air quality, hence affecting the choice you need to make when buying. For example, if you have a breathing problem, you need high-quality air filtration to ensure the air is well filtered from all pathogens.
Material and Minimum Efficient Reporting Value Ratings
The air filter performances are rated by MERV rating, a scale of 16. The MERV helps rate the filter depending on how well it can purify the air and hold the contaminants. When buying the air filter, be sure to check the MERV rating and research to know what different ratings mean. It would help if you avoided air filters with high MERV since they will cost you more as they require more energy to operate the furnace and AC system. The highest MERV provides better filtrations as there will be more air restrictions to ensure every dust and pathogens are removed. However, as the system works hard to achieve this, more energy will be required. Most people go for filters with MEVP 6-8.
Before purchasing an air filter, ensure you have the list above and confirm that you know the size or ask for an expert to guide you. When considering the MERV, if you want a higher, consider consulting with a technician or an expert to guide you. | <urn:uuid:007d1f73-e6f6-4211-8010-5ba3e776faf1> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://getassist.net/things-you-should-consider-when-buying-an-air-filter/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.9322 | 680 | 2.40625 | 2 |
ما يقوله الناس - كتابة مراجعة
لم نعثر على أي مراجعات في الأماكن المعتادة.
طبعات أخرى - عرض جميع المقتطفات
abode according ancient Apoll Apolló Apollod appear Artemis Athéna beauty became bore brother brought called carried cause celebrated changed character chariot daughter death deities derived Dionysos earth epithet father former gave give given goddess gods golden Grecian Greece Greeks hand head heaven hence Héra Héraclés Hermés hero Hésiod Homer Hymn ideas island isle Italy killed king land Latin latter legend light manner married means moon mortal mother mountains Müller mythe mythic mythology nature night nymphs observe Odysseus offered Olympos origin Paus perhaps poem poet Poseidón present probably race regarded religion represented river sacred says seems sent signify similar sister sons stream supposed temple Theog took usual various viii worship Zeus
الصفحة 256 - The birds their quire apply ; airs, vernal airs, Breathing the smell of field and grove, attune The trembling leaves, while universal Pan, Knit with the Graces and the Hours in dance, Led on the eternal Spring.
الصفحة 128 - Thammuz came next behind, Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured The Syrian damsels to lament his fate In amorous ditties, all a summer's day; While smooth Adonis from his native rock Ran purple to the sea, supposed with blood Of Thammuz yearly wounded...
الصفحة 389 - I sit by and sing, Or gather rushes, to make many a ring For thy long fingers; tell thee tales of love; How the pale Phoebe, hunting in a grove, First saw the boy Endymion, from whose eyes She took eternal fire that never dies ; How she...
الصفحة 151 - Return, Alpheus, the dread voice is past That shrunk thy streams ; return, Sicilian Muse, And call the vales, and bid them hither cast Their bells, and flowerets of a thousand hues.
الصفحة 261 - More lovely, than Pandora, whom the gods Endowed with all their gifts ; and, O ! too like In sad event, when, to the unwiser son Of Japhet brought by Hermes, she ensnared Mankind with her fair looks, to be avenged On him who had stole Jove's authentic fire.
الصفحة 190 - Castalian spring, might with this Paradise Of Eden strive ; nor that Nyseian isle Girt with the river Triton, where old Cham, Whom Gentiles Ammon call and Libyan Jove, Hid Amalthea, and her florid son Young Bacchus, from his stepdame Rhea's eye ; Nor where Abassin kings their issue guard, Mount Amara, though this by some supposed True Paradise, under the Ethiop line By Nilus...
الصفحة 240 - Wherewith she sits on diamond rocks, Sleeking her soft alluring locks; By all the nymphs that nightly dance Upon thy streams with wily glance: Rise, rise, and heave thy rosy head From thy coral-paven bed, And bridle in thy headlong wave, Till thou our summons answered have.
الصفحة 362 - And, missing thee, I walk unseen On the dry smooth-shaven green, To behold the wandering moon, Riding near her highest noon, Like one that had been led astray Through the heaven's wide pathless way, And oft, as if her head she bowed, Stooping through a fleecy cloud.
الصفحة 48 - The star that bids the shepherd fold Now the top of heaven doth hold ; And the gilded car of day His glowing axle doth allay In the steep Atlantic stream ; And the slope sun his upward beam Shoots against the dusky pole ; Pacing toward the other goal Of his chamber in the east. | <urn:uuid:43000717-86bf-4547-884e-fcecd266af32> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://books.google.com.eg/books?id=XmMBAAAAQAAJ&dq=editions:ISBN0013106716&hl=ar&output=html_text&lr= | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.875392 | 973 | 2.0625 | 2 |
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Café Scientifique: Climate Change and Food Security
June 19, 2018 @ 4:00 pm - 5:30 pm
Climate Change and Food Security led by Dr Catherine Bradshaw, Met Office
Catherine Bradshaw joined the Met Office in 2016 with a research background in palaeoclimate modelling, and prior to that, many years experience of working for environmental consultancies on projects for local and national governments, both in the UK and abroad. As part of the Climate Security team, she analyses the interactions between the climate and human systems. Recent and on-going activities include investigating the climate risk to agriculture and the likelihood of multi-breadbasket failures, as well as the broader context of combined food, energy and water security. | <urn:uuid:475f9736-bd75-4295-8423-47f9a1063dc1> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://visionforsidmouth.org/event/cafe-scientifique-climate-change-and-food-security/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570651.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20220807150925-20220807180925-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.941417 | 158 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Steps have been created in Years to take care of the impact industrial solutions have on our ecology. Petroleum companies are doing their best to supply our carbon dioxide fuels that are essential using a twist. It has to a degree but finally all businesses have a duty to change their carbon footprint standing, a local building contractor or whether a business. Unfortunately this shift is more than side stepped for limitations and reasons. Reluctance is currently helping to stagnates our efforts to move away from business services which are helping to grow our footprint. Within The construction building, cleaning and maintenance business rope access techniques are being accepted at the work place as a type of access and egress. Access provides environmental effect and is extremely cost effective compared to traditional access methods like cradle systems, MEWPS, cranes and scaffolding.
The flexibility rope access can provide is unbeatable, ropes could be installed or removed in less than 1 hour and typically the labor time to finish the job is comparable to any other type of access. Obviously There are situations where multiple tradesmen need access to a particular structure area and scaffolding is the sensible approach but there are equally as many situations where scaffolding was erected around the whole perimeter of a town building block which needs minimal repair work to existing window frames for brick or example re pointing, concrete repair etc.. This strategy generates and is unjustified. This situation is repeated across several cities again and again, tonnes and tonnes of unnecessary scaffolding that produces an environment that is unsightly, brings a building site mind-set, generates more traffic the scaffolding needs to be delivered, provides appreciable sound pollution and is generally unattractive. Cherry pickers etc, MEWPS effective in situations are extremely noisy and emit a whole lot of fumes from gas or gas exhausts.
Rope Accessibility is the alternative that could eliminate all the above. Ropes can be removed at the end of their day leaving the building to operate normally that scaffolding causes. Work areas can be kept small and compact within a zone to 3 of those floors or ten floors of scaffolding to be carried out on less than 2. Pollution is decreased and removal time and the setup are eliminated resulting without the strains that were apparent in precisely the calibre of workmanship that access methods create. Whilst Construction companies and building owners are starting to realize the efficacy of rope access it is still considered a last resort when access forms are much too costly. It is this stubbornness or trend to rely on industry standards that is currently holding back the world to the environmental responsibilities of it with regard. | <urn:uuid:a6b6cf1c-b98a-4140-b831-b2d9ca50f6f7> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.edmedicationguide.com/general/rope-access-greener-approach-to-industrial-services.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570879.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808213349-20220809003349-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.962626 | 516 | 2.21875 | 2 |
Tirumala Tirupati Temple
Tirumala Tirupati Temple Located in the Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh, Tirupati is one of the most visited shrines in the country and one of the most profitable shrines in the country. Sri Venkateswara Swamy Temple (also known as Balaji) is famous not only in the country but also in other countries. A large number of devotees especially from Sri Lanka, Nepal and Cambodia visit this, Lord Venkateshwara Swami.
Tirumala is one of the seven hills of Tirumala Tirupati where the main temple is located. People believe that Lord Venkateswara took the form of an idol in this temple hence the name Govinda.
History and Architecture of Tirumala Tirupati Temple
Tirumala Tirupati Temple temple, the history of Tirumala temple dates back to the 15th century under the rule of the Vijayanagara Empire. It is said that Vijayanagara Emperor Shri Krishna Devaraya performed many pujas.
Tirumala Tirupathi Devastanam temple, the history of Tirumala temple dates back to the 15th century under the rule of the Vijayanagara Empire. It is said that Vijayanagara Emperor Shri Krishna Devaraya performed many pujas. The Tirumala temple is completely built in the Dravidian style. All these are evidences of Sheila inscriptions found there. Tirumala Tirupati is one of the oldest cities in India and is highly mentioned in the ancient Vedas and Puranas.
Lord Venkateswara of Tirumala is known as the God who fulfills the desires of the people here. That is why many celebrities along with many people come here to visit Tirupati Balaji. The surroundings of the temple are constantly chanting the Lord’s name. The surroundings of the temple are constantly resounding with chants of ‘Om Namo Venkatesaya’ and ‘Govinda Govinda’. That is why the mind seems to be meditating on the peaceful part of the temple premises.
Pictures when visit there
View of the main temple is phenomenal
At the sight of the eight-foot-tall idol of Venkateswara Swamy, one goes into ecstasy and in the presence of God – everything about Sri Venkateswara Temple is extraordinary and yet marvelous. Spread over an area of 26 km, it is crowded with thousands of pilgrims every day. And visited by around 50,000 to one lakh pilgrims every day, this temple is also commonly known as the Seven Hills Temple.
Places to visit in Tirumala Tirupati
In the range of Tirumala Tirupathi Devastanam, there are other temples in Tirupati like Sri Kalahasti Temple, Sri Govindarajaswamy Temple, Kapila Theertham, Kondandarama Temple, Parashurameshwara Temple and ISKCON Temple.
Papa Vinashanam: Papa Vinashanam Located 8 km from Thirumala. Devotees believe that bathing in water here removes all sins. From here water is supplied to the tirumala. The dam built for the reservoir here is called Gogarbham Dam.
Aakasha Ganga: Akasha Ganga is located about 3 km north of the Srivari Temple.
Sreevari shilaa Toranam: Sreevari shilaa Toranam a unique geographical marvel, which is a must-see rock formation at the Tirumala Hills.
Sri Venkateswara National Park: Venkateswara National Park is located on the way to Thirumala. The Park is home to a wide variety of wildlife such as foxes, hyenas, leopards, panthers, bear cubs, wild dogs, wild cats and flying lizards. This includes moist deciduous forests and dry deciduous forests. Rare native plant species such as Red Saunders, Shoria talura, Shoria thumburgia, Terminalia pallida, Sandalwood, Sycas bedndomy, Cigsium alternifolium, Xylotum nudum grow in the area.
The people of the area say that the animals in the forest came to the temple premises in the wake of the lock-down during the Covid Pandemic. That means we can understand what the weather there is like during Lock Down.
Transport facilities to Tirumala
By Road: There are four bus stands in Tirupati. Thirumala can be reached by buses from here. The first is the Sri Venkateswara Bus Station opposite the railway station. Buses from Bangalore arrive at the Balaji Link bus station at the average Alipiri tollgate. There is ample space to park tourist vehicles. Buses from Chennai, Hyderabad and Vijayawada reach Saptagiri Link Bus Station (Large Bus Stand). There is a Sri Padmavati bus station behind the railway station for tourists arriving in groups in private vehicles.
By Train: The nearest railway station to Tirumala is Tirupati. Trains to Tirupati station are available from all major parts of the country. There are RTC buses from the Sri Venkateswara Bus Station opposite the railway station to the hill. If you book reservation tickets and cottage accommodation in advance, you can get out of the station and go up the average hill.
By Flight: The nearest airport is the Tirupati Airport near Renigunta. There are direct flights to Delhi, Bangalore and Hyderabad.
By Walk after raching Tirupathi: If you want to reach Tirupati after reaching Tirupati, you have to travel by bus or other vehicles to 22 Kilo metres. The road is winding in the middle of seven hills. Due to the congestion on the way up and down the hill, there are different ways to go up and down the hill.
Tirumala can also be reached on foot from Tirupati. Devotees see revelation through this walk as a virtuous act, a rite. The walkway landscape is very nice.
Alipiri is the only walkway known to all. There are two ways to reach Tirumala hill. The road from Alipiri is familiar to everyone. Speeding this route takes about four hours. The second trail to reach Thirumala is from ” ‘Srivari Mettu’ ‘. The journey on this route takes only an hour. Local people used to go to business sellers’ ingredients like milk, yoghurt and flowers are taken up the hill and sold by the same route. The route is scenic and scenic.
Accommodation and Dining in Tirumala
However, we have already mentioned that a large number of devotees come to this temple so if you plan in advance about the darshan and accommodation then there will be no problem for accommodation and darshan facility.
The dining facilities in Tirumala are also excellent. There are many other hotels under the auspices of the temple beside free food arrangement.
You will first know all the things through the mobile application through the official website of Tirumala Devasthanam. Darshanam, Swami Puja and accommodation on the TTD Online Service website can be booked online and your visit can be arranged without any hassle.
You need to register with any official identity card before booking a dormitory room. The rent for booking a room is From Rs. 100 to 1500. Are available to the rich and poor. | <urn:uuid:4fc3bbed-88e5-43f8-922f-db66dd4bfc1a> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://travelokam.net/tirumala-tirupati-temple/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.945153 | 1,602 | 2.296875 | 2 |
A family rift. Debt. Finding a career you love. Heartbreak. Tap into 3,000 years of Buddhist wisdom to find real solutions to life’s problems.
Today we’re discussing what we can learn from Buddhism about how to navigate love’s highs and lows.
The third and final story in our miniseries on Buddhism and business.
The second story in our miniseries on Buddhism and business.
The first story in our miniseries on Buddhism and business.
A miniseries on winning at work and applying your Buddhist practice to your job.
An episode about mental health, one of our most requested topics of the year.
A discussion on “the creative life force” within to manifest the most authentic self and create art from that place.
How Buddhism addresses the root of racism, and how individuals are speaking out against it in their own unique ways.
Explore what Buddhism says about being a parent and how to foster children who can blossom fully, just as they are.
A special episode in response to listener requests for perspective on the global pandemic COVID-19.
Where do you find courage or hope? Examine what Buddhism says about changing the world.
What Buddhism says about desire, wealth and attachment. Hint: it has a lot to do with recognizing and transforming ourselves.
An episode about figuring out what to do with your life and making it happen against all odds. | <urn:uuid:fe6a4eff-9d0a-4112-9957-506481dd7e3d> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.worldtribune.org/podcasts/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.937557 | 302 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Throughout the 1900s, the family bought or built a lakeside retreat in the Belgrade Lakes Region as a place to get away with the kids during the summer. Fast forward many years, and the dynamics have changed. Several generations of children are grown with kids of their own, and they all want to spend time at the family lakehouse…together! While the house sits on a beautiful piece of land on the shore of the lake, it’s a camp with a funky floor plan and limited space for multiple generations. Now what?
Many older camps were not designed for larger families. The size of the cottage may be adequate, but the sleeping quarters and bathrooms don’t match the guests. It’s possible that the floor plan can be re-arranged by utilizing the space to offer better sleeping arrangements. Turn a bedroom into a “bunkroom” for the kids. The cousins will quietly whisper themselves to sleep every night in their own space.
Lofty idea? Many camps have vaulted ceilings or un-utilized attic space. Think about creating a loft space to put additional bunks and beds.
Existing porches and decks can be enclosed to become additional bedrooms. If there is a basement, can it become a bunk room, or a living space instead of just storage?
A lot of older camps are close to the water, so the potential to add on to the existing structure is limited…but not impossible. Find a reputable builder and work with the local code enforcement officer to see how much expansion is possible. Remember in some cases you may be able to go up, if expanding a footprint won’t work. You may be able to add enough extra space to work in the necessary bedrooms and bathrooms to accommodate the family.
How about a bunkhouse? For a lot of properties, there are bunkhouses, garages or secondary structures that already exist on the land. You may be able to update what is already there into comfortable living space. You also may have the option to build a new bunkhouse on the land. Again, a question for the local code enforcement officer.
Remember, we are here to spend time on the lake with family. Building luxury accommodations are not always needed as long as we’re all together.
And as a last resort, try to find something new on the lake that works for the entire family or will accommodate the overflow now and in the future. Or, find something that has more potential for updating and expanding.
©2022 by Summertime in the Belgrades. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:ca57fc79-b5b8-43d1-9f58-d49f4a9d96f7> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://belgradelakesnews.com/2022/07/limited_space.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570651.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20220807150925-20220807180925-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.94895 | 528 | 1.914063 | 2 |
Owners may charge their Electric Vehicles at their residence/offices using their existing electricity connections, the central government said on Saturday while issuing guidelines and standards for charging infrastructure.
“The Centre has promulgated the revised consolidated guidelines, whose objective is to enable faster adoption of electric vehicles in India by ensuring safe, reliable, accessible and affordable charging infrastructure and eco-system,” said the ministry of power.
It said that the guidelines have been made further technology-agnostic by providing for not only the prevailing international charging standards available in the market but also the new Indian charging standards.
As per the new guidelines, any individual/entity is free to set up public charging stations without the requirement of a license, provided that such stations meet the technical, safety as well as performance standards and protocols laid down under the guidelines.
“An exhaustive list of compliance requirements for Public Charging Station (PCS) have also been outlined. These include norms for “appropriate” infrastructure for civil, electricity and safety requirements,” it said.
Further, it said that in order to address the challenge of making a charging station financially viable in the period of growth of EVs, a revenue-sharing model has been put in place for land used.
“Land available with the Government/Public entities shall be provided for installation of Public Charging Stations to a Government/Public entity on a revenue-sharing basis for the installation of Public Charging Station at a fixed rate of ₹ 1/kWh (used for charging) to be paid to the Land-Owning Agency from such PCS business payable on quarterly basis,” said the government.
A model revenue sharing agreement has also been included under the guidelines.
“Such revenue-sharing agreement may be initially entered by parties for a period of 10 years. The Revenue Sharing Model may also be adopted by the public Land-owning agency for providing the land to a private entity for installation of Public Charging Stations on bidding basis with floor price of ₹ 1/kWh,” it said.
In terms of timeline, it said that PCS shall be provided connection within seven days in metro cities, fifteen days in other municipal areas and thirty days in rural areas. Within these timelines, the distribution licensees shall provide a new connection or modify an existing connection.
The tariff for the supply of electricity to public EV charging stations shall be a single part tariff and shall not exceed the “Average Cost of Supply” till 31 March 2025.
“The same tariff shall be applicable for Battery Charging Station (BCS). The tariff applicable for domestic consumption shall be applicable for domestic charging,” the government said.
As electricity is being provided at concessional rates and also considering the fact that subsidy is being provided by the central/state governments in many cases for setting up PCS, the state government shall fix the ceiling of service charges to be charged by such charging stations.
In addition to this, the government also said that the EV Public Charging Infrastructure will be rolled out in a phased manner.
Phase I (one to three years): All Mega Cities with a population of 4 million-plus as per census 2011, all existing expressways connected to these Mega-Cities & important Highways connected with each of these Mega Cities may be taken up for coverage. A list of these Mega Cities and existing connected expressways is prepared
Phase II (three to five Years): Big cities like State Capitals, UT headquarters may also be covered for distributed and demonstrative effect. Further, important Highways connected with each of these Mega Cities may be taken up for coverage.
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our App Now!! | <urn:uuid:dd83d0f4-c465-4a61-89ae-bc9a44342e18> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.indiafinancenews.com/owners-of-evs-allowed-at-home-charging-with-existing-power-connections-centre-in-new-guidelines-mint/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.941079 | 767 | 2.03125 | 2 |
P.O. Box 1401
Rapid City, SD 57709
Recipe for Disaster, A
By: Tracy Wells
Cast: 2 M, 7 F, 11 flexible (With doubling: 2 M, 6 F, 9 flexible)
Performance Time: Approximately 30 minutes, 29 pgs
CHILDREN’S COMEDY. When Jana enters her basement science lab, she becomes “Dr. Noodles, scientist extraordinaire”! But just as Dr. Noodles is on the verge of a scientific breakthrough, her siblings―Maddie, Carter, and Ellie―accidentally spill a purple liquid in the lab, transforming Dr. Noodles into a hungry monster. But that’s not all! The potion also turns a cheese sandwich, a rubber chicken, a baby doll, a worm, a container of slime, and a Bigfoot statue into walking, talking creatures! As Maddie, Carter, and Ellie race to find an antidote to return everything back to normal before Mom gets home, a nosy neighbor and two detectives arrive to investigate the ruckus. Monstrously mindboggling, this children’s comedy is perfect for elementary students and is easy to stage.
Freeviews: To read play excerpts click here.
Scripts: $6.95 each
Prompt Book: $13.00
Poster Package: $50.00 (50/pkg)
Distribution Rights: $60.00
Artwork Rights: $50.00
Play Pack: $263.00 (23 scripts for cast/crew, 1 royalty, 50 posters, 1 prompt book) | <urn:uuid:2e905801-637c-4f77-9ce2-bc7776794262> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://bigdogplays.com/playdisplay.asp?playid=631 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571745.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812170436-20220812200436-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.821034 | 371 | 1.5 | 2 |
DIVISIVE - “causing a lot of disagreement between people and causing them to separate into different groups.” Merriam-Webster Online.
According to that defintion, The Sacred Names groups are “divisive!” They cannot even agree among themselves on the correct way to pronounce the name of the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ.
When we read scriptures like this, let’s use the precepts that are taught by Jesus and the apostles instead of phonetics:
Rom_10:13 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
(If that verse is referring to the phonetics of a verbal pronunciation, then a deaf-mute could not be saved.)
Jesus and the apostles teach us that we must have faith and obedience to be justified and call upon the Lord to give us the enabling power to overcome temptation. | <urn:uuid:4680fb6c-b27e-4f4c-9024-8ff42bad2123> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.keepandshare.com/doc/6970853/divisive | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.918917 | 192 | 2.09375 | 2 |
The church of San Pietro in Vincoli is also known as Basilica Eudossiana, because it was rebuilt (replacing another one of identical dimension, the latter built on Roman ruins), by Eudossia, wife to the Emperor Valentiniano III, to treasure the chains of San Pietro retained in Gerusalemme and entrusted to her by her mother Eudocia.
Consecrated by Pope Sisto III in 439, it was restored under the papacy of Adriano I in 780 circa, and then after the year 1000.
Remarkable works were carried out by Sisto IV’s nephew, Cardinal Giuliano Della Rovere, between 1471 and 1503, year in which he was elected Pope under the name Giulio II.
In recent excavations, performed on the occasion of the restoration of the pavement, ruins from the previous buildings were dug out and are now accessible.
The façade is preceded and hidden by an elegant porch that rises from a wide stairway.
The interior is quite grandiose for the parade of splendid columns that divide it into three naves and confer a theatrical aspect, due to the ceiling with a very low vault, portraying "Il Miracolo delle Catene" by Parodi.
According to tradition, the two chains (ties) used to tie up San Pietro are still treasured underneath the altar. It also hold the famous “Mosè” by Michelangelo. | <urn:uuid:6a06b6cc-74fc-4b32-a85e-14a6a0ce88e7> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://tour.rome.it/rome/what-to-see/details/basilica-di-san-pietro-in-vincoli | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571147.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810040253-20220810070253-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.970483 | 307 | 2.625 | 3 |
The proteomic map based on data from 103 patients reveals novel prognostic biomarkers and potential drug targets for lung adenocarcinoma.
List view / Grid view
Peking Union Medical College
Researchers experimenting on macaques reveal they were protected against reinfection up to a month after the initial exposure to SARS-CoV-2.
A group of researchers has used cryo-EM to discover the structure of the remdesivir-bound RNA complex of SARS-CoV-2 and explain how the drug inhibits COVID-19 viral replication. | <urn:uuid:9917a987-8cff-4085-bed6-43f643fbbec3> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.drugtargetreview.com/organisations/peking-union-medical-college/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571147.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810040253-20220810070253-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.893113 | 118 | 2.171875 | 2 |
These are the most prevalent methods of stealing someone’s personal information from a computer. You’re tricked into handing up your personal information in these sorts of scams. Cell phone messaging, Internet social networks, emails, texts, and regular mail may all be used to perpetrate these sorts of assaults. Some of the most often used strategies are described in the following paragraphs.
If you are bounded by any الاصطياد الإلكتروني, please reach out to us for help.
While it isn’t uncommon for this to happen, it is possible for a hacker to alter the website host file or domain name system so that URL address queries are sent to an entirely other, faked website established by the hacker. Victims are more likely to provide personal information, such as credit card numbers, social security numbers, and addresses, since they believe they are on a reputable website. Afterwards, the hacker utilises the stolen information to perform identity theft.
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By verifying the padlock icon at the right-hand bottom of the web page’s scroll bar, you may protect yourself against this form of theft. Prior to inputting any personal information, contact the website owner or organisation to check that such information is genuinely required by the site. As soon as you learn that someone is phishing for your password, you should ask for your account to be deleted. Verify the accuracy of your credit report for any suspicious activities. See the Preventing Identity Theft web page for additional information on reviewing your credit reports. We can also help you out, if you are ابتزاز الكتروني المغرب, just contact us.
Also check: Doublelist
The term “voice phishing” refers to a similar scam. When a thief calls a person, they are committing a crime. In this case, the scammer pretends to be an employee of a legitimate company, such as a government agency, a financial institution, or a payment service provider. In order to have access to your private information, we need to know who you are.
Some scammers utilise pre-recorded communications, such as automated calls, to convince you that you’ve won a reward or that your personal information, such as your credit card or debit card number, is urgently needed. As a first step, most State Attorney Offices suggest that you write a letter to the corporation asking them to cease contacting you and delete you from their database. In order for your State Attorney’s Office to have documentation of your letter to the corporation phoning you, you must get it certified. A complaint to your State Attorney’s Office might be made if you continue to receive calls after the letter has been issued. You should inform your state’s Attorney General’s Office immediately if you lose money in a Vishing fraud.
Also check what is a maisonette | <urn:uuid:1180e791-7a67-4f83-82cf-344b5edf6eac> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://businesssearching.com/fraudulent-email-message-phishing/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.933691 | 623 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Is heat bad for your hair?
Exposing your hair to very high temperatures can dry it out because the heat accelerates the evaporation of water naturally present in the hair. Over time, the scalp and the hair will become damaged and irritated. As a result, your hair becomes dry, dull and brittle with split ends.
So does that mean we have to steer clear of hairdryers, straighteners and other sources of artificial heat?
It is important to bear in mind that all these appliances act differently on your hair. While it is, of course, better to avoid them, we can give you tips on how to protect your hair, if you do use them.
Is the hairdryer a friend of your hair?
To avoid being cold or to save time when you get out of the shower, the hair dryer can be a real ally. But remember, it is not very good for your hair.
The hairdryer doesn’t just dry your hair, but it also dries your scalp. It removes water present on the hair, but can also remove the hair’s natural water content. This has a damaging effect on hair cuticles (the scales on the hair that protect and nourish it). As a result, your hair becomes dry, damaged, brittle and fragile.
What about air drying?
Contrary to what you might think, air drying is not the ideal solution. In fact, when your hair is wet, it is more sensitive to pollution, external aggressions, friction from clothes, pillows, etc. The reason for this is that the water expands the hair, leading to the breakage of cuticles and weakening the hair. In winter, for example, when it’s cold outside, we recommend you use the hair dryer and don’t go out with wet hair to protect your hair from getting damaged by the water present in the hair freezing.
So what should you do?
It is recommended to alternate between these two drying methods depending on the season and the time of day you wash your hair.
What are the risks of straightening your hair?
It’s not just an old wives tale, straighteners really are bad for your hair.
Straighteners can be a really practical way to tame your hair in minutes, but remember that this requires very high temperatures, sometimes reaching 230°C.
The heat can be bad for the hair fibre, drying, damaging and weakening it. This can lead to hair loss or scalp irritations (because you’re not looking after it properly). Exceeding 180°C (which is already a lot) is not recommended, so imagine what your hair is subjected to when you use heat of 230°C every day. Straighteners should be saved for occasional use.
What can you do about it?
Don’t worry, while we know heat appliances can be harmful and aggressive, there are ways to keep using them while protecting your hair.
Remember, however, that prolonged daily use of these appliances is still not advised and will ultimately burn or damage your hair.
Heat protective spray
A real protective barrier for everyday use, our heat protective hair mist is perfect for protecting your hair from heat and other aggressions. Thanks to a formula containing 99% ingredients of natural origin, it has a deep acting effect to prevent the hair from becoming too dry. And that’s not all! Thanks to its heat protective active ingredients, the ELENATURE mist protects your hair when using straighteners and hair dryers. It also acts as a shield against environmental stress by smoothing cuticles, which makes them more resistant and impermeable to external aggressions.
Start good habits!
When you straighten your hair, make sure it is completely dry (and not damp). If your hair is not bone dry, you risk slightly burning it and creating a little “explosion” of steam.
As far as hairdryers are concerned, don’t set the heat too high and avoid staying too long in the same zone. It’s also important not to don’t hold the hair dryer too close to your hair, as you could damage it with too much heat.
The right hair products and hair care routine
Ionic technology is less aggressive for your hair. It allows you to dry, straighten or curl your hair. . This could be a good alternative and a great way to enhance your hair without putting it through too much, especially if you use the ELENATURE heat protective spray!
Lastly, to make your hair healthy and shiny, opt for natural and vegan hair products. Less harsh than conventional hair care products, they give your hair everything it needs, without damaging it. | <urn:uuid:93e7769b-33ea-4a5c-93cb-d89df1b41936> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://elenature.com/en/2022/03/09/https-www-elenature-com-en-2022-03-09-straighteners-hairdryersshould-we-avoid-them-and-what-are-the-alternatives/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.948532 | 981 | 2.390625 | 2 |
SeaWorld Gives The Most Absurd Reason For Not Freeing Its Orcas
The ink has barely dried on SeaWorld's welcome decision to end its breeding program, but the company is once again twisting the facts.
Earlier this month, SeaWorld announced it would no longer breed its orcas, meaning the 24 orcas currently in its care would likely be the last generation. However, while the decision was heralded as a step in the right direction, people quickly questioned whether SeaWorld would take the logical next step and release its orcas to a sea sanctuary.
SeaWorld was quick to shut those questions down - and make clear that the company would keep its orcas in their tiny tanks as long as it could.
"Critics want us to go further; they believe we should simply 'set free' the whales and release them into the ocean," SeaWorld said in a statement titled "Why Sea Cages Are Dangerous." "We believe that would likely be a death sentence for our whales."
Unfortunately, as usual, SeaWorld's latest PR spin isn't quite accurate.
For one, far from calling for the orcas' release into the wild, most legitimate biologists and animal welfare advocates would agree with SeaWorld. The park's whales are far too "messed up" to be fully released, said Dr. Naomi Rose, Ph.D, a marine biologist and orca expert with the Animal Welfare Institute.
Rose told The Dodo that, after being raised in SeaWorld's unnatural environment, many of its orcas are too damaged to ever live on their own in the wild - and it's unlikely that they could be trained to survive on their own. "We're pretty crappy orcas," she said of humans. "And the idea that we could train an [captive-bred] orca to be an orca is pretty arrogant of us."
Rose, like others in the orca welfare community, believes that sea sanctuaries, or fenced-off pens in the ocean, would be the next best thing. They would allow the orcas to have access to things they've grown dependent on in captivity - medical care, prepared food - while having more room to swim and regaining part of the lives that nature intended.
But SeaWorld said that the sanctuaries - which its PR team rechristened "sea cages" - "would be as dangerous for the whales as simply releasing them into the ocean, and could in fact be worse.
"Stuck in these cages, they would be helpless to avoid contagious diseases, parasites and pollutants," SeaWorld said. "They would be sitting ducks, stuck in one place no matter what the tide brings in, whether it's an oil spill or a hurricane."
Rose doesn't buy that claim. "The idea that sea pens in and of themselves are dangerous is utterly ludicrous," she said.
While Rose said that setting up sanctuaries would have to be done carefully - taking into account water quality and location, as well as the health of the orcas - she noted that SeaWorld used to move its whales around extensively and that, in her opinion, the benefits would far outweigh the risks.
While SeaWorld's orcas have been subjected to a host of welfare issues, one of the biggest is their lack of space. While orcas can easily swim 75 miles per day in the wild and dive hundreds of feet below the surface, SeaWorld's orcas are packed into tanks just a few body lengths long.
The overcrowding - both among the orcas and other animals like dolphins and belugas - has led to some of the most violent animal incidents, including orcas ripping strips of skin off each other, animals pushing each other out of their tanks and fights that have even turned fatal; one orca, Kandu, broke her jaw when violently ramming a tankmate in the 1989. She severed an artery and died spurting blood from her blowhole while her infant daughter circled, panicked, around her.
And leaving SeaWorld's two dozen whales - including a calf about to be born - to live in these conditions for what could be another 40 years seems like a much crueller "death sentence" than moving them to sea sanctuaries.
"It's not something to be done lightly. I agree with them on all those points," Rose said of the move to ocean pens. "The fact that it would be a death sentence? That's ludicrous. They have no data to support that."
And while SeaWorld says that it would be impossible to transfer orcas to sea sanctuaries because "sea cages for orcas do not currently exist anywhere in the world," the park ignores the fact that sea sanctuaries are hardly a new concept. Rose noted that the U.S. Navy's Marine Mammal Program keeps its trained dolphins in sea pens just down the coast from SeaWorld San Diego.
In another bit of pro-captivity spin, SeaWorld mentions the case of Keiko, an orca who was captured as a calf in 1979 and returned to the ocean in the late 1990s after being freed from a Mexican amusement park.
"Never in the history of mankind has an orca born under human care survived a release to the wild," SeaWorld says. "Even though Keiko was born in the wild and millions were spent preparing him for release, after being released he died from pneumonia and starvation. We're not going to take this risk with SeaWorld's whales."
Again, SeaWorld falsely conflates release to a sea sanctuary with a release into the wild. But even then, Rose noted, Keiko lived for several years in the ocean before he passed away - despite SeaWorld's strong opposition to the move at the time. Keiko was also close to his natural average lifespan when he died, and was in the open ocean and not a sea sanctuary, so it's impossible to draw conclusions about the safety of sea sanctuaries from his story, she explained.
She also noted that SeaWorld's new statement on sea pens is more than a little self-defeating.
"This is the hypocrisy that SeaWorld is claiming; they're claiming that their whales are good models for wild whales, and that ... you can do research on captive whales," Rose said. "Then they tell me, 'But if we dip them into the ocean they'll die.' That tells me they're models for nothing."
SeaWorld, it seems, is just grabbing onto the argument that allows the park to make the most money of the whales with as little effort as possible - even if means contradicting itself.
"The best, and safest, future for our whales is to let them live out their lives at SeaWorld, receiving the highest quality care, based on the latest advances in marine veterinary medicine, science and zoological best practices," SeaWorld said.
Of course, SeaWorld was just as adamantly opposed to ending breeding days before they announced they'd be closing the program. And Rose, for one, isn't giving up hope that, one day, SeaWorld will be pressured into taking another step forward for its orca's welfare.
"We damaged them; we have to care for them," she said of the orcas. "But they're going to be in a natural habitat with a lot more room to roam ... they'll have more to do ... it'll just be a more interesting life." | <urn:uuid:fa6f0e39-dfab-4379-a78e-85699d266691> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.thedodo.com/seaworld-orcas-sea-sanctuaries-pens-1700373682.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571147.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810040253-20220810070253-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.980836 | 1,518 | 1.945313 | 2 |
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